


A Failure to Save Face

by Locksnek



Series: UngNa dumpster fires [3]
Category: The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (TV)
Genre: Angst and Pining, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Other, Sexual Content, Swearing, actually gra is sort of in the story in one scene, coarse language, gruenak, my HC is that Skeksis don't really have a concept of consent and I do not condone this, sorry gra's not in the story but his presence is very much felt in the story, there will be specific chapter warnings in the start notes where triggering content occurs, this story is hard to tag (like everything wants parentheticals), translation errors resulting in disaster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:40:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 43,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26041318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Locksnek/pseuds/Locksnek
Summary: SkekNa and SkekLi fail an errand, only to come home to find things much changed at the Castle.  The Emperor is already pissed off.  SkekLi has a knack for pissing people off even more.Alternative summary: A sadist, a sadomasochist, and a masochist walk into a fic
Relationships: skekNa/skekUng (Dark Crystal), skekli/skekgra (past), skekna/skekli (mostly implied)
Series: UngNa dumpster fires [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1823725
Comments: 90
Kudos: 19





	1. On the Road Again

**Author's Note:**

> I was struck with sudden inspiration to write this particular story because it's sort of a nexus for a few plotlines for all of my favorite characters. Not quite clear exactly where I'm going with some of it, but some things aren't going to end well, as those who have read my [not dead, just sleeping] longfic Nose to Nose might start to suspect.
> 
> Someone is going to need to forcibly come in here and make me stop include body parts in all my fic titles.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SkekNa and SkekLi make their way back home after a misadventure.

Some miles northwest of the Castle of the Crystal, two figures lurched wearily up onto the plateau, the stubbing rocks and scratching brush eventually giving way to tall grass that closed over the shorter Skeksis’ head. The taller one peeked up over the rustling expanse in annoyance. “Road should be around here somewhere. Or at least, some phegnese trails… Damn it, SkekLi, which one of us is going to tell the Emperor?”  


“About which part, SkekNa?” SkekLi answered in an aggressively patient tone which suggested this conversation had been had numerous times.

  
“About why we failed to obtain three female Gruenak of breeding age, dolt. Personally,” SkekNa grumbled, thrashing aside some of the grass with his hook-arm, “I think that, as the translator, the failure of our venture lies with your interpretive error.”

“Personally, good sir, I think that, had you not killed one of the last two breeding-age female Gruenak in your stock, and injured the other such that pregnancy would be implausib–”

SkekNa whacked SkekLi across the side of his face with the blunt end of his hook, not particularly hard, but enough to cause the latter to hiss in indignation and bite idly at the hook. “Shut it, Satirist. This isn’t about why we needed the Gruenak in the first place, it’s about why we failed to get them. You’re making a–an–”

The Satirist’s face brightened. “Ah, yes, you can do it!”

“–a logical fucking fallacy, SkekLi! That’s what you’re doing! Logical fallacy. Straw-gelf, I believe it’s called.”

“Correct!” SkekLi beamed, having evidently forgotten, or ceased to care, that his colleague had struck him moments earlier. “You’ve caught me out, indeed. I still think it’s a shame you had to resort to such–-” A sidelong glance and a snarl cut the Satirist’s train of thought short. “You are absolutely right, the fallacy is called straw-gelf, and its intent is to divert the interlocutor’s attention from the real issue at hand. I see you’ve not failed to learn anything from me during our time together.”

“Yes, we get it, you’re very clever. But, to return to my original point: _Not_ clever enough to avoid a very serious error in translation that got us held ransom by fucking _Gruenak pirates_.”

“SkekNa, please. How many languages have you learned _de novo_ , without the help of any other Skeksis, or without any extant lexicons or grammars? … Yes, that’s what I thought. So, I might occasionally make, um…errors. For which I’ve apologized many times, in many forms.”

“You’re not done apologizing,” SkekNa muttered in a vaguely suggestive undertone, causing both to bristle a bit.

“You are unforgiving and cruel,” SkekLi lamented, perhaps not altogether unhappily.   
  
  
“No shit.” SkekNa’s glower eased abruptly. “Ah! There’s the road, finally.” They stumbled out onto the broad, cleared highway that would eventually lead them back to their Castle. Generously, SkekNa clapped his companion on the shoulder with his remaining hand, the right one. “We’ll be back in time for dinner at this rate. But still, the Emperor’s not bound to let us just sit down and stuff our faces without an explanation.”

  
“SkekNa, I can assure you I’m genuinely mortified by my error. When they told me something I’d translate in hindsight as: ‘Those Gruenak on that ship will ransom you,’ –Well, the thing about language and translation is, there’s no one-to-one correspondence between words. All concepts are nuanced, subjective. I truly thought they meant: ‘Those Gruenak on that ship will aide you in your strife’–Since, as you’ll recall, we were at the time starving and could find nothing edible on the coastline–”

“Sure, sure.”

“And Gruenak are mountain folk, cave folk! How the fuck was I to know they had pirates, SkekNa?!”  
  
  
Privately, SkekNa had to concede that this was a fair point. Aloud, he said with disdain, “And you didn’t take any–oh, I don’t know–any _ominous hint_ from the name of their ship? _The Happy Collision_?” 

SkekLi, whose sardonic confidence was typically difficult to subdue, openly cringed in embarrassment or apology. “Look, I thought it meant something like: ‘What a lovely chance meeting, please have some ale and food.’”

“That’s the stupidest bit of optimism I ever heard. How are you even still alive, with that mindset? ‘Happy collision’ means: ‘Glad to collide with you, now how may I abuse you?’”

“There’s a bit of projection, Slave-keeper.”

SkekNa stopped and snapped his head around abruptly to glare into SkekLi’s face. “Well, I’m not wrong, am I? And now, not only do we get to tell the Emperor we failed to procure any Gruenak breeding stock– We get to explain that Admiral SkekSa is demanding reimbursement for her payout of our ransom from the imperial coffers.”

SkekLi’s uncharacteristically chastened look persisted. He went so far as to lower his head, also stopping in the road. “My error was–inept, certainly. I expect better from myself. Yet the decision, my lord, was yours. What authority did I have in this matter? What authority do I have to address the Emperor on your behalf? I was with you to serve, not to–”

“Ha! Spare me your theatrics and groveling, I know exactly what you think of me, you little–” SkekNa had gripped the other’s scrawny neck with his hook, pulling him in closer, when a faint noise and vibration traveled down along the road ahead of its source. The Slave-keeper hastily released the Satirist, and both attempted to dust off their robes and smooth down their feathers. They stood with some semblance of expectant dignity by the time the regional patrol, four Gelfling on landstriders, loped into view. 

The Gelfling were above them on their gangly-legged mounts, which created an awkward situation in itself, never mind the two Skeksis lords being gaunt and filthy from several hard days’ travel on foot. The patrol all bowed their heads as low as possible, attempting even to coax their landstriders into the half-kneeling position they used to mount and dismount. The landstriders weren’t entirely cooperative; they never were easy around Skeksis, perhaps because no Skeksis had bothered to deal with them properly. Even SkekUng, the Fleet Commander, who oversaw all Skeksis modes of transport and was typically able to gentle the phegnese despite his vicious bearing, had no interest in the landstriders since they were solely a Gelfling commodity. The patrol’s lead officer spoke carefully:

  
  
“Lord SkekNa, Lord SkekLi, you–have not been expected. We offer thanks to Thra to see you well. None knew where you’d gone or when your return might be anticipated, else we would have–”

“Yes, of course, no one could know. We were waylaid.” SkekNa waved his hook impatiently. “Just–return to the Castle and send out my carriage along the way you came, we’ll meet it on our way back.”  
  
  
“Our thanks,” SkekLi added, throwing SkekNa the faintest disapproving glance at his brusque speech.

The landstriders turned and sped off. Once they were out of sight around a bend in the road, SkekLi hunkered down and stretched his back and limbs with a prolific popping of joints. “So are we going to walk until we meet your carriage, or might we sit here and wait for it?”

SkekNa spat on the ground, not at the other, but not exactly aiming away from him either. “We’ll keep walking. I’m well aware that your favorite form of exercise involves quivering like a fizzgig in heat with your tail to the side, but we are Lords of the Crystal, SkekLi.”

“Dear Thra, what a load of hyperbole. I just wanted to rest my legs. As you like, you bloody sadist.”  
  
“Come on then, off your lazy arse,” barked SkekNa, ignoring the aching of his joints and his own urge to rest with all his might. Really, it would do no harm to sit down, to wait for the carriage which would probably not be long in arriving, but SkekNa had his dignity. SkekNa’s dignity involved suffering, not only inflicting it upon those in his power, but enduring it himself. He had learned about suffering when he lost his arm, which had not been a quick clean chop, but a long delirious decay punctuated by Skeksis coming along to amuse themselves with his pain, and by SkekUng–of all people–comforting him in secret in the dead of night. SkekNa barged onward with resentment and a bit of dread and a bit of eagerness. What _would_ they tell the Emperor? When would he get to be alone with SkekUng?   
  
SkekLi sighed lightly and fell into step beside him. 

~~~~

Once in the carriage, with the drapes safely drawn against the Gelfling escort on their landstriders, SkekNa allowed himself to flop down on his back on one of the seats. SkekLi curled up on his side on the opposite seat, crackling his knuckles and flicking his tail with a somewhat painful air of idleness.

“Last time I use you as my translator,” SkekNa grumbled damningly. “Conqueror can take you back.”

SkekLi’s movements ceased for a fraction of a second, his whole body tensing. Then he said in a flippant, almost gentle tone, “I’m not Conqueror’s to take.”

The Slave-keeper snorted. “Could’ve fooled me. Me and SkekUng both saw his bite marks on your neck. No mistaking those teeth. You still sore at him?”

“No.”

“You’re fucking lying.” SkekNa leaned up on his elbow, not knowing what compelled him to bother trying to reason with the strange little fellow. “We’re not Gelfling–”

SkekLi winced strangely.

SkekNa narrowed his eyes, canted his head. “Sensitive, aren’t you? Listen, we’re not Gelfling, we’re Skeksis. We don’t have that crepe-thin hide, that absorbs petty bullshit like piss. Whatever you’re mad about, it’s probably not worth it.”

The Satirist stared for a moment in evident astonishment, then snarled. “You know nothing about the situation, SkekNa. I’ve seen you dismember creatures begging for their lives, and laughing about it, and you sit here lecturing me on bullshit? How sensitive are _you_ , how strangely romantic, to think that creatures such as us can just magically have everything be right between–with–”

SkekNa sprang across the carriage, onto the other seat with the other Skeksis, jamming the open claws of his hook up against the other’s trachea until SkekLi was rasping for breath. “What the _fuck_ did you just say to me?”

“Hmm. Sorry,” SkekLi choked out with malice. “That’s right, you’re not sentimental, you’re not soft. You’re cruel. You bathe in blood. So do _not_ lecture me, just because you and SkekUng have so much in common.”

Hesitating, SkekNa slackened his grip a bit. “Damn, SkekLi, I wasn’t talking about sentiment. Just–” He tried not to wince, to think that anyone would view his association with SkekUng as something _romantic_ or _sentimental_. Then again, most Skeksis probably didn’t have that in them. It was just this whimsical personage, who had something of a Gelfling song-teller to him, that would even think of seeing it that way. That was all. “–if you have a good thing, don’t throw it away. A good bottle of wine, a good robe, a good fuck, whatever.”

“You assume _I_ threw anything at all away.” 

SkekLi’s glare was so resentful, and also tinged with something else SkekNa couldn’t or didn’t want to name, that the Slave-keeper backed off. “Oh. You’re saying he snubbed you.” 

The Satirist rolled onto his other side and made a point of pretending to have fallen abruptly into a deep nap.   
  
  
SkekNa shrugged, resuming his own seat. It hadn’t occurred to him that whatever SkekLi had going on with SkekGra might not be sustainable. Sure, it hadn’t been what anyone expected (except perhaps SkekShod, who had won some kind of wager with SkekLach on the matter after happening upon the two in the bathhouse), but nor had SkekNa had reason to expect it to change after it was a known thing. But why would he? Conjecturing about what Skeksis did or might do wasn’t really his concern, as long as his own needs were sated. Thinking back on it–and granted, thinking was something SkekNa knew he didn’t excel at, but still, it was coming clear now; SkekLi had practically thrown himself at SkekNa, brimming over with excitement at the prospect of translating for him on his Gruenak-harvesting trip. Right. He’d wanted out of the Castle, away from SkekGra.

“Well fuck, that seems kind of stupid,” SkekNa told SkekLi helpfully. “What’d you ever do to him? Other than be a know-it-all, but so is he, so I reckon you’d get along on that count.”

There was only silence, carefully controlled breathing, from SkekLi’s side of the carriage.   
  
  
SkekNa was about to give up when the other said very quietly, in a defeated tone, “I wasn’t cold enough. You think you’re cold? I’ve woken up in your bed more often than his, and you don’t even like me.”

“You’re shitting me. I would’ve thought–”

“You would’ve thought wrong. That one….that one needs to fall asleep alone, and wake up alone, and Thra help you if you interfere with that. It’s fine. It’s fine. He can _be_ alone.”

SkekLi did not sound particularly fine, but SkekNa let it rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SkekLi mentions a ship called The Happy Collision somewhere in Nose to Nose. I had no idea whether he was being facetious at the time or not. I always really wanted that ship to exist though, so now it does.


	2. Welcome In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SkekLi and SkekNa arrive at the Castle to find the Chamberlain dropping ominous hints.

SkekSil met them in the vast, echoing maw of the carriagehouse. “Ah! Slave-keeper, Satirist. Welcome in to Castle, yes, Skeksis so happy, so relieved, to learn that you are safe.” He waved them out of the carriage with an overabundance of ceremony as they disembarked. “Friend Chamberlain has been sent to ensure that you promptly find all safety and comfort back home, oh yes, please follow, right this way, mmh? Friends have been abused by the dust of the road on their hard journey, by the stinging nettles and creeping creepers, to be sure–Straight to the baths!” 

“We–can tend to that in our own chambers,” volunteered SkekNa, barely containing his vexation.

“Yes, normally. Apologies for inconvenience, SkekNa. You see, there has been, since you were gone, something of a–disturbance in Castle,” murmured SkekSil, ushering them along one of the narrower, lesser-frequented passages. “Is best not to trouble contemplation of mighty Emperor with road-weary Skeksis stumbling through halls. Shortest route to cleanliness is to bathhouse. I lock doors, only the two of you, have Podlings bring you repast.” 

SkekLi and SkekNa glanced at each other, united in their befuddlement. On the one hand, the Chamberlain was known to hatch his own schemes for what might seem entirely random and petty reasons, that turned out to have shocking significance only in hindsight. On the other hand, if SkekSil were speaking the truth, then something truly unprecedented must have gone down in the Castle, to stir the often calm but highly volatile embers of their Emperor’s wrath to such wildfire that no one dared tread the main halls. “Just as well, SkekNa,” SkekLi ceded merrily, after a moment’s silent conference: “As my lord Chamberlain’s observed, we’re a tad filthy from long days on the road. I’d just as soon not track it into my chambers, to get to my own bath.” 

“Right,” muttered SkekNa, his hackles now raised, trying not to make too evident the wary glances he cast about them. “No need to have both our chambers cleaned, the rugs and all, from tracking all this grime across them. Much easier to clean the bathhouse. The Chamberlain is…pragmatic.” 

“HhmmHH,” nodded SkekSil, most agreeably. He pushed open the doors of the bathhouse with both palms. Thankfully, there was no one currently inside to clear out. “Well then, I will have Podlings come draw bath, nice and warm. Two baths, in fact, one for second rinse, nice bubbles, scented water, all very well to welcome back our kith, hmmmh? Sit down, make selves comfy, I’ll call them down. Lock door after them when they finish, for well-deserved privacy.” 

“We thank you, my lord.” SkekLi bowed as they backed into the lofty room with its basins and taps and confusions of pipes, and said what he and SkekNa were both thinking. It would, after all, be beneath SkekNa’s dignity to do so. “We’re most regretful to hear about this disturbance in the Castle, but hope that all’s still well with our most august Emperor’s mission farther afield to bring order to all the peoples of Thra–that, say, lords SkekUng and SkekGra are still bringing to heel the far-flung lands of–”

“Do _not say that name!_ ” SkekSil hissed suddenly, growled really, his voice dropping half an octave, neck extended toward them in aggression or supplication. “Never say that name in the Castle, either of you, do you understand?!” 

SkekLi’s stomach felt like it was in his throat, and the bathhouse tilted around him. He found himself leaning on SkekNa, just a bit. He saw his own shock reflected in his colleague’s face.

“Uh–” SkekNa rasped, after a long and agonized hesitation. “Which name?” 

SkekSil tilted his head at them, considering. First, he’d seemed fearful that the incidental mention of “the name” might summon wrath upon his own head. Now, however, he seemed slightly amused. His eyes settled unnervingly on SkekLi’s for just a moment, rife with some terrible knowledge, and then he turned back and answered SkekNa smoothly, “Commander SkekUng fares very well, my lord, does duties diligently. The other name–is name no longer.” 

SkekLi felt some of the tension go out of SkekNa’s shoulder and arm. The Satirist, meanwhile, reeled the more profoundly. “SkekSil–my lord Chamberlain, on what grounds–” 

“Not mine to say, SkekLi. Just know that I speak for the Emperor here. You find out in due time.” SkekSil met his eyes again in that same fleeting way that spoke volumes, with an amusement that SkekLi would take SkekNa’s more visceral sadism over any day, smirked just a tad, then murmured with an air of sympathy: “Friend knows, SkekLi, is new and confusing. SkekLi and SkekNa have been gone many unum. Do not worry. Are tired. Just rest, and remember that this name is a name no longer, and soon Podlings bring you good food, good libation. Welcome back to the Castle, Lords of the Crystal.” 

SkekSil bowed backward out of the room, as though either of them were people he would need to pay any such honor to, shut the door gently behind him. SkekLi leaned with his full weight against SkekNa’s shoulder, retching dryly. SkekNa was not whom he would have chosen as a confidante in such a moment, but here they both were. “SkekNa, what did he mean?” the Satirist choked out pathetically, like a childling. 

SkekNa could easily have been cruel. It wouldn’t have been unexpected. But, he had been equally terrified that the name-not-to-be-spoken was that of SkekUng, SkekLi had seen the panicked spark in his eyes. Thus, SkekNa was not cruel. Nor was he particularly kind. He sat SkekLi down on a bench along the wall and said a bit sternly, “Who knows, why guess? Wait for Podlings to bring food and run the bath. Then lock the doors.” 

  
~~~~

  
They took dinner in the first bath, eating messily, chunks of food adding to the mess that the grime of their travels was making of the water. The second bath had been drawn scalding hot, so that it would be comfortably warm by the time they’d had done with the first, and was full of smelly soaps and bubbles. Or rather, SkekNa took dinner in the first bath, and ale too, spilling both frequently and indifferently. He glared at SkekLi. “Gotta eat something.” 

“Not hungry.” 

“That doesn’t matter. Gotta keep up your strength. Whatever this issue is, you in particular need to keep up your strength.” 

“Me in particular? I doubt SkekGra even cares if I’m concerned for–”

“Shard’s sake, SkekLi, don’t be stupid. Remember what Chamberlain just said? About the name?” 

“I don’t really give a fuck what Chamberlain said about not speaking SkekGra’s name,” SkekLi said recklessly, while his stomach churned with nausea just looking at his food. 

“Fuck, you’re dumb,” SkekNa commented, without any particular consternation. “Listen, I’d laugh as hard as the next Skeksis to see you flayed–”

“I thank you.” 

“Of course. But. As someone who learned the hard way–” SkekNa jabbed with his beak in the direction of his hook, which he really seemed rather proud of. SkekLi wondered if he ever missed his hand, or if the hook and the more terrible creature it had rendered the Slave-keeper made the loss moot. “–you have to be a bit careful about what you say and do. Be as mad about it as you want. Take it out on anyone or anything that can’t turn it back on you. But fucking use a little caution. Unless you want to end up missing some part of you.” 

Some compartment of SkekLi’s mind realized this was sound advice, and even quite generous of SkekNa to bother dispensing. SkekNa was well known for his enjoyment of watching others be punished, so perhaps the warning emanated from the brief scare he’d had when it hadn’t been clear whose name wasn’t to be spoken. Rather than acknowledge what might almost be mistaken for kindness on SkekNa’s part, SkekLi heard himself railing on, “But I’m not mad about anything. I’m concerned. I want to know what the fuck happened to SkekGra.” 

SkekNa downed the remainder of half a bottle of ale in one long gulp and let it drop into the tub, where it sank and hit bottom with a dampened thud. “I can see I’m really getting through to you here.” 

“What kind of rubbish is this, can’t speak SkekGra’s name? What sort of cowardice would prompt this censorship? What did they do with him? Where is he?”

“Fuck if I know. You’re raising your voice, just so you’re aware. It’s disturbing my meal.” SkekNa belched and gnawed on the end of something’s tiny limb-bone. He seemed to have selected that bone rather deliberately, SkekLi noted even in his panic. 

“Oh, forgive me for disturbing your meal when the whole Castle appears to be under lockdown, the Emperor’s apparently sitting on an even bigger stick than usual, and the fiery pits only know what happened to SkekGra.”

SkekNa grabbed another drink. “This is going to be a long evening, isn’t it.”

  
~~~~

  
They were in the second bath when the door, which they’d locked from inside, creaked inward. SkekLi and SkekNa started, casting each other mildly panicked looks. SkekSil, of course, had a key. He did have the veneer of decency to knock, but only as the door was already opening. “Ah, friends all nice and clean now I trust? Dirt and burrs of the road all washed away, hunger sated, nice drink, hmmh?”

The other two submerged themselves deeply into the soap-bubble frosted water. It wasn’t that either of them had any particular sense of modesty, but no one enjoyed it when SkekSil oozed into any room unannounced. 

“Yes, SkekSil, we were doing just fine, I promise you we can take care of ourselves, thank you,” SkekNa said quickly, politer than usual. It occurred to SkekLi that the other Skeksis was trying to remove SkekSil from the room before the Satirist opened his mouth again.

SkekSil was not inclined to move. “Hmmm, yes, good, did not mean to rush, but if friends can wrap up bath soon, we explain to you what is happening in Castle.” He laid some robes on a bench. The garments looked to have been dredged up from Thra knew where, being in an early style that was no longer in fashion. Ah well, that was preferable to SkekSil obtaining the master keys from the Emperor and rummaging through their rooms for some of their own clothes. “Please put on robes when you’re done, I wait right outside door here, take you straight to Library. Our Scroll-keeper will tell this recent history.” 


	3. The Official Version of History

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein they find out what happened to SkekGra. SkekLi has angst, SkekNa has a nice time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not-very-graphic sexual content. (A specific subset of monsterfuckers will be happy to note that it’s essentially physically impossible for me to write SkekNa and SkekUng together without something happening.)
> 
> ACTUAL chapter warning: Throwback to Creation Myths era clothes. ;)

SkekSil led them again along obscure corridors, avoiding the main and quickest routes to the Library. SkekLi tried to picture what sort of state the Emperor must be in, for everyone to be so wary of even running into him. SkekSo had two forms of wrath: the quiet one where his eyes scooped out everything inside you and examined it dispassionately, and found and prodded the places where you hurt; and the loud one where he raged like a rabid arduff and struck, bit, summoned some inexplicable strength from his skinny frame to throw you bone-crackingly against a wall or table or another Skeksis. Both of those states were best avoided, but SkekLi had never seen either one of them at such an intense or sustained pitch that the entire Castle had fallen into a habit of cowering and whispering. 

Happily, they reached the library without incident. SkekSil rapped three times on the door, then disappeared into the shadowed and silent halls with nary a “mmmhh” issuing from his throat. 

Normally, SkekLi would have made up some jest about this uncanny silence on the Chamberlain’s part, but he had no heart for it now. He tended to find humor even in grim circumstances. Say, that time SkekSo had terrorized them in the bathhouse, and after he’d left them be, SkekLi had immediately made up an unflattering ballad about the Emperor’s nether regions, to SkekGra’s consternation–but that had been funny because they had been in it together, and he had thought then that maybe they really were _in it together_. Now, not only was SkekGra no longer in anything with him, SkekLi didn’t even know what had happened to him. Did they have him locked away somewhere? Had they tortured him, mutilated him? Surely they hadn’t–they couldn’t have slain him, the Emperor himself had decreed that Skeksis do not kill Skeksis.

The Satirist tried to slow his breathing. He would know soon enough. As the door opened inward just enough for them to slip through single file, and SkekOk’s long hand beckoned them in from behind it, the panicked sensation leapt along all his nerves, a scalding ice in his bloodstream. He had to steady himself on the doorframe as he entered the library behind SkekNa.

SkekOk shut the door with a deeply harried expression. His face registered brief surprise at the outdated clothes SkekSil had scrounged up for them (smelled of mothballs, too), but he too was clearly in no mood to crack a smart remark about it.

The Scroll-keeper nodded to each of them in turn. “Welcome back to the Castle of the Crystal. I regret we’ve had to receive you under such–irregular circumstances.” His eyes stayed a bit longer on SkekLi’s face. SkekOk was one of the few Skeksis whom SkekLi would count as a friend, and had also been on very good terms with SkekGra. 

Sighing, the Scroll-keeper waved them over to a cluster of three armchairs with a low table between them. “Seat yourself, please. There’s water for you.”

SkekLi noted that the water was made available in small wooden drinking bowls, not glass or clay or ceramic. It was almost as if SkekOk expected one of them might be dropped. This was hardly encouraging. SkekLi sat down heavily in one of the chairs and clutched the water stupidly like a childling clutching a fizzgig kit, failing to really hear whatever prelude SkekOk was giving about his heavy duty as the Castle’s historian being to apprise them of recent events of historical significance, which had transpired in their absence–

“SkekOk, please, just tell me if he’s alive,” SkekLi squawked, unplanned, unelaborate, and interrupting.

SkekOk tried to glare. “SkekLi, protocol. You need to let me–” His face fell, as though mirroring whatever he saw in SkekLi’s own eyes. “Hush, Satirist, of course he’s alive. How monstrous of you to even think that he should have been–disposed of, in a such a way. It is against our laws. You know this.”

SkekLi had almost stopped listening again at “of course,” choked down a sob of relief. He stared studiously down into the bowl of water, quivering uncontrollably, a few additional drops sliding down his beak and joining its contents.

“Steady there, you’re fine, drink some of that,” muttered SkekNa. To SkekLi’s surprise, the Slave-keeper said somewhat apologetically to SkekOk, “See, the Chamberlain was a little _dramatic_ when we casually inquired about a few of the Skeksis, specifically about the–the…”

“Heretic,” SkekOk supplied.

SkekLi, who had been taking SkekNa’s advice and raising the little bowl to angle his beak into it, did in fact drop it. SkekNa handed him his own bowl without comment, without even glancing at him, and continued addressing SkekOk, “…Heretic. Okay. Anyway, Chamberlain began squawking and carrying on to ‘never say that name again.’ He made it sound pretty dire.”

“Ah. I see. Well, I fear it is quite dire. And SkekSil is correct that the Heretic’s name and former title are not to be uttered, nor written. He is very much alive. However, we won’t be seeing him again. Nor is the intervening history particularly….easy.” SkekOk cast SkekLi another meaningful glance. The Satirist tried to steady himself, to be attentive. At least SkekGra was alive out there, somewhere. 

~~~

SkekNa couldn’t help but gape and even suck in his breath a couple times at the bizarre, grisly tale SkekOk related. SkekLi, in the chair beside his, was a complete wreck, but fortunately the Satirist didn’t have, say, the Ornamentalist’s habit of wailing and beating his breast. SkekLi just sat there shaking, occasionally whimpering involuntarily (and perhaps not even conscious of it). What a ridiculous, sensitive fellow, SkekNa thought, although the very next moment he thought on how relieved he was that he would soon get to see SkekUng. SkekNa was no fount of compassion nor of deep philosophy, but one thing he had learned to recognize during the protracted torture devised to remove his arm was when he was being a hypocrite. He decided not to say anything sadistic or malicious to SkekLi, for maybe a week or so. He also took his leave of the other two immediately, when the history had been told in full. Better to leave SkekLi in the care of his old friend, and anyway, SkekNa had other people he would rather be around.

He proceeded straight to SkekUng’s quarters, rapped on the door with his hook. The door took its time opening, and then the face that peered out registered wariness before anything else; SkekUng’s eyes darted along the corridor, then he yanked SkekNa in by the hook and shut the door hastily. This _was_ bad, if even SkekUng feared to run afoul of SkekSo.

The two stared at each other for a long, uncertain moment.  
  
  
“Took your time getting here,” SkekUng volunteered at last.

“Chamberlain made us bathe. Then SkekOk told us everything.”

“Great. Where were you? Unum gone, no message–”

“Held ransom by Gruenak pirates.”

SkekUng rubbed the bridge of his beak, an errant strand of his customary spittle drip sticking to his wrist. “Of course you were, because the whole world is going batshit insane.”

“Is it true?” SkekNa canted his head, sniffing at SkekUng as though some smell of iron or blood might yet remain on him.

“Whatever SkekOk told you is the official truth.” SkekUng inched in a bit closer.

“So he went mad. Because of…keeping prolonged, voluntary company with–the UrRu.”

“Yeah.”

“And you drove the nail in.” SkekNa spoke with a mixture of admiration, mild arousal, and some peculiar sense of dread. He wanted to fling himself at SkekUng, grapple him against the wall, lick every inch of him, he had missed him, but–surely, he wasn’t afraid? Intimidated, perhaps? The trespass had been heinous on SkekGra’s part, but such a punishment–to lose not just a limb, but possibly one’s mind–? And SkekUng had carried it out.

“I did.” SkekUng also sniffed at SkekNa, leaning in near his throat.  
  
  
“Did it make you happy?”

  
“Yes,” the answer came very quietly, right next to his earhole. SkekNa shuddered. SkekUng gripped him suddenly, biting and licking at his throat in what seemed a near frenzy, also attempting to explain in broken phrases. “Don’t get me wrong–not happy that our former Conqueror betrayed us–not happy, to lose that talent, that great mind– _no one’s_ happy about that, SkekNa– But the deed itself? You know me. You know me–too well to need to ask that question.”

  
He had a point.   
  
  
“You–did more than kill someone,” SkekNa said after quietly letting SkekUng bite his neck for a few moments. “You–changed someone. It’s true too, what Scroll-keeper said–that Scientist chose the spot, so he wouldn’t be too changed? You didn’t lobotomize the bastard?”

“No, of course not. Shit, is that what you thought? He’ll be–a bit different, maybe, but not destroyed. You’re right, that would be worse than dying.” SkekUng stopped nibbling and nosed lightly at SkekNa, almost plaintively, disappointed by the latter’s unnerved mien and failure to return his advances. “He’s just–been marked, been given a pain, that will never let him forget he betrayed us. We’d all like to put him out of our minds, but SkekSo is still bristling with rage whenever anyone sees him. He doesn’t want us to speak the name, but he’s not letting us forget either. I’d lay low if I were you. Emperor is looking for a reason to punish someone else.”  
  
  
SkekNa allowed himself to be reassured by the first part of SkekUng’s monologue. The Scientist might be annoying, but he knew what he was doing. It was fine, a particularly fitting form of maiming when one thought about it. SkekNa had lost his hand because he’d struck the Priest; so, if SkekGra wanted to lose his mind to heretical and frankly suicidal ideas, then, well, let it be so. 

Finally letting himself lean into SkekUng, SkekNa curled the fingers of his right hand into the wispy but dense feathers at the back of the other’s head. “Lay low, huh? Lucky me, I have to go tell Emperor that SkekSa paid our ransom to those Gruenak pirates–it was SkekLi’s fault, really, that that even happened–and that she expects reimbursement from our treasury.”

“Oh, fuck’s sake.” SkekUng’s grip tightened. “You are not going anywhere near the Emperor right now. You say it’s SkekLi’s fault? Let SkekLi deal with it.”

“Um, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Satirist–is going a bit mad himself at the moment. He’s flapping his beak about, you know. If he pisses SkekSo off, the trouble will only fall back on me. I was the one in charge.”

“Fine, I’ll fucking tell SkekSo then. You’re going to stay here, unless specifically summoned, and preferably be in my bed ready to thank me for my trouble when I get back.”  
  
  
“You don’t need to–”  
  
  
“Well, I’m going to, I’m pulling rank, sit down and shut up.”  
  
  
“Wait, I only just got here!” SkekNa protested, feeling, irrationally, as though SkekUng might not come back.   
  
  
“I should deliver the news as soon as possible, he’ll be sore with all of us if there’s too much of a delay–”

“Just stay a second? I missed you.” That was only the second time SkekNa had admitted any such thing, but these were exceptional circumstances. It had been strange enough to be kept from the Castle by force for unum and to not know when he would see SkekUng again; but to come home to find that SkekGra was banished and the entire Castle was on pins and needles with the Emperor, and to feel something like sympathy for SkekLi’s plight–it was a bit more than a Skeksis such as himself, who preferred keeping life simple, could take in at a glance. 

SkekNa had grabbed onto SkekUng’s sleeve, a bit pathetically, as the latter made a decisive course for the door. SkekUng whirled back around with a growl, wavering, then ducked his head down again to reach SkekNa in a clatter of snapping beaks and lapping tongues. 

“–fuck is this you’re wearing?” SkekUng rasped out as they scrabbled at each other, reaching down and noticing for the first time that the garment was not elaborate or layered, just a simple unbelted tunic under a cloak with a ridiculous metal collar. “Wait, is this–”

“Uh, yeah, the shit we wore before SkekEkt saved us. Chamberlain hustled us straight from the baths to the Library, got these clothes out from somewhere for us.”

SkekUng held SkekNa out at arm’s length and burst out laughing. “We actually dressed like that? By Aughra’s withered eye socket, you look ridiculous.”

“Fuck you.”

“Take that off, it offends my sight,” SkekUng said, apparently rhetorically since he was already pushing SkekNa back against the wall and hauling the whole mess up over his head himself. “At least it doesn’t take half a trine to remove,” he admitted, tossing it aside. Not having the aforementioned time to divest himself of his own garments, he only loosened and unclasped enough to get himself inside the other Skeksis. SkekNa hissed and clawed frantically at him, the words _I missed you_ like flashes of lightning behind his eyes, not saying them again. They might be true, but no point in overusing them.

SkekUng hauled him to his room after and dumped him on his bed, leaning down to pin his wrist there for a moment. “Just stay right here. Don’t set one damned foot off this bed, right? I just need a bit more info from you, then I’ll go report to Emperor on this clusterfuck, it shouldn’t take long.”

~~~

After SkekNa had departed in haste–enviable, where he was headed, SkekLi thought bitterly–the other two remained hunched in their armchairs for a few silent awkward beats. Then SkekLi leaned in, looking up at SkekOk pleadingly. Even though they were alone, he added an extra layer of privacy for the other’s benefit, as the Scroll-keeper was clearly uneasy enough as it was. SkekLi spoke in what they’d termed Lower Middle Gelfling; language changed over time, and that had been the form and manner of the Gelfling speech back when the–the UrSkek had first arrived, and none of the Skeksis now remembered it, and only the two of them (and SkekGra) had ever bothered to study it. 

They were both not exactly fluent, there not being much opportunity to practice a dead language. “SkekOk, I know you what said, here–is what you will say, to paper, for the story of the paper. What you must say. I beg you. Tell me, real story.”

SkekOk glanced away with a guilty look, paused a long time, then gave a beleaguered sigh and fussed with his endmost pair of spectacles. “Real story, yes. _Don’t_ speak of it, SkekLi. Never.”

“Of course.”

“Real story is, most of same. Heretic brought in the Mystic, to dinner. Told us, like I said: Skeksis are…not unmarred–er, not whole. Should be one with Mystics, maybe make the old things again, two into one. All real. 

“Not real: He did not scream or swear. He did not say Skeksis–bad coinage, argh, um–didn’t say Skeksis are worthless. Didn’t threaten Emperor. He didn’t scream and swear until other Skeksis did scream and swear first, at him, at the Mystic. Threw food, other Skeksis. Me too,” SkekOk admitted frankly, drawing back into his collar a bit. SkekLi didn’t have it in him to be indignant at such a minor detail, and motioned for him to continue. “He said, he brought in the Mystic to show Skeksis that Mystics–cannot hurt Skeksis. Never speak of it, that he said that. Emperor will take your tongue.”

SkekLi nodded. “And–the–-” Not recalling the word, he pointed to the top of his head with a wince.

“All real, that punishment, as I told. Now listen: Skeksis not meant to know, only Emperor and Hunter, but–words will travel, quietly. You know. Never speak of this. Hunter followed them, to the Desert. Said, it looks like they–like wounds get a little wiser–er, get a little better. Said, they often sleep like–like fizzgig, close…” SkekOk demonstrated with his hands curled together.

SkekLi gaped, a sense of rage momentarily smothering his anguish so completely that all he felt was hatred. The fucking Conqueror, who would not suffer his friend of all these long trine (his friend who adored him, or, had at one time) to even occupy the same bed as him, would coil himself up with a Mystic? How dare he?   
  
  
“And they walked, into the desert,” SkekOk finished. “Maybe week ago.”

“He deserved it,” SkekLi hissed, lapsing out of their private language. The other blinked at him in surprise. Then SkekLi hunkered over and laid his head on the little table between them, something crawling up from his chest and seizing his throat in a paroxysm of sobbing.

“Oh no,” muttered SkekOk, patting him awkwardly on the shoulder. “Look, you really can’t do that here, someone might come in, someone might hear you. The Castle is perilous right now. Please, pull yourself together. Just for a moment? For the sake of all the suns! Just hold it together for a few minutes, I’ll take your back to your rooms."


	4. Extinctathon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Emperor finds a convenient target for his ire. SkekLi has more angst, SkekNa has a nice time again (in a different way).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is practically as long as the prior three combined, oops, lots of ground to cover here.
> 
> Chapter warning: Gore, protracted death.

Other than dinnertime, where a tense parody of their typical raucous meals was enacted with great effort, the Skeksis rarely gathered in one spot in the half-unum since the Heretic’s banishment. No one milled around in the throne room chattering or attempting to curry favor with SkekSo, although he could often be found there himself, lurking about in the dimmest of lighting as though waiting for someone to come give him a reason to vent his spleen.

SkekUng approached the throne warily. The Emperor was not exactly seated, but more draped over the thing on his side, fiddling with his sceptre and staring at it balefully. The undignified posture was uncharacteristic and somehow only made SkekSo seem more alarming. Even SkekUng, rarely one to be intimidated, was ill at ease in his presence and bowed much lower than was his wont. “Sire, I believe the Chamberlain informed you that SkekNa and SkekLi have re–”

“Yes, yes, good for them.” SkekSo did not look up. “SkekSil tells me SkekOk related the–news to them, and the corresponding directives.”

“Correct, sire.”

“And yet, here you are, troubling my contemplation.” 

SkekUng winced just slightly at the scathing glance with which he was dignified for half a moment. “Only to bring a bit of related news. They were unable to obtain the Gruenak for which–”

“SkekUng, I do not care. Gruenak are SkekNa’s concern. I have no opinion regarding who or what serves in this Castle, as long as it is operational.”   
  
  
“Of course, Emperor. There’s–another matter though…”

SkekSo sat up properly, in a weird slitherly movement, and fixed SkekUng with a cold stare. 

SkekUng tried to choose his words carefully. Tact was not one of his strong points. Tactics, yes, hence he was all too aware that his presentation of this matter might strongly impact outcomes for himself and SkekNa (and SkekLi). “My colleagues, in their attempt…happened to discover that Gruenak pirates actually exist. Who’d have thought?” 

The Emperor did not respond to SkekUng’s vague hint of a chuckle, just continued staring with a put-upon air, talons of one hand drumming on his sceptre.

“In any case, they made something of a–a translational and tactical error. Which resulted in SkekLi and SkekNa getting held ransom by these particular folk.”

SkekSo’s face registered surprise for the first time in days, which was instantaneously displaced by ire. “Why am I only just now hearing about this? Did they escape? Did they buy their own way out? I received no message about any…ransom.”

“The message was sent to SkekSa, my lord,” SkekUng said cautiously. “She acted unilaterally, paid the ransom out of her own coffers, and sent SkekNa and SkekLi back with tidings that she–is requesting reimbursement.”

SkekSo snarled, leaping from his seat and taking a swing at SkekUng with his sceptre. SkekUng crouched to avoid a rather grievous head wound, and decided to remain in that stance while the Emperor paced around him frenetically. SkekSo kept swiping and snapping with his beak, not exactly at SkekUng, but near him, while he fumed: “SkekSa oversteps yet again. Why did she not send me a message, arrange this payment through properly sanctioned channels? Better yet–why did she kowtow to the demands of, what did you say– _Gruenak_ pirates? She ought to have annihilated them for their audacity.”

“My lord, I’d venture a guess that SkekSa didn’t attack the Gruenak or have them wait on payment because she was concerned they might slay our Slave-keeper and our Satirist. How would that look, to all of Thra? What would that say about our power?”

“Yes, about our–immortality,” murmured SkekSo, falling still for a moment. “About our mandate from Thra to keep the Crystal.” SkekUng almost dared let out his breath in relief, but then the Emperor resumed his menacing pacing and raised his voice again. “She could at least have eliminated the Gruenak after gaining custody of our Skeksis. She is not doing well by us, essentially letting it be known that it’s all well and good to just hold Lords of the Crystal ransom willy-nilly. I tell you, SkekUng, spending too much time away from the Castle–away from the Crystal–has ill effects on Skeksis.”

SkekUng was often long abroad, himself. He said as diplomatically as he could, “I for one, am always glad to return to the Castle, to the Crystal’s light and my fellows.”

“Yes, charming,” SkekSo muttered dismissively, off on a new rant. “Care to explain to me why SkekSa didn’t send a message to the Castle in advance of SkekNa? Or provide them with transport or an escort, or adequate provisions? Just turned them loose and sent them stumbling back here practically starving?”

“My understanding is she was a bit sore with SkekNa and SkekLi. You know–I mean, my lord, I believe you’re aware that SkekSa doesn’t really hold with enslaving the creatures of Thra.”

SkekSo snarled and gave SkekUng a half-hearted backhand across the beak, as though SkekSa’s unorthodox opinions were _his_ fault. The Emperor was the only person against whom he couldn’t retaliate when struck, and on the rare instances when it did happen, it typically filled him with a rage that spent itself only gradually on everyone else over the course of several days. It always took all he had not to spring at SkekSo and grab him by his skinny neck, but now he was so wary that his flare of outrage almost didn’t register over his alarm.  
  
  
“I will not be reimbursing SkekSa,” the Emperor went on, stepping away a few paces and seeming to fix his glare on some non-existent point just above SkekUng’s head. “She made her own choice, spent her own funds. She sent the message that Skeksis are weak. She is fortunate I don’t go over there and gut her myself.”

This was all bluster. SkekSa had an ideal setup, lord of an entire region that was unfamiliar and all but inaccessible to the rest of them. The Skeksis did not have any military force at sea, aside from, ostensibly, SkekSa herself. The Emperor generally let her be, as any bid to control or sanction her would be tantamount to declaring war on her. The only thing SkekSo could really do about it was withhold the requested funds. Both of them knew this, so SkekUng only nodded, then attempted, “I don’t think this event will have–repercussions, that is, for Skeksis’ reputation. It happened in obscurity. No one really knew about it, expect for the Gruenak, and I suppose some of the Sifa. The Sifa will say nothing, if SkekSa tells them to say nothing.”

“Then send her a message to order the Sifa to keep their silence, idiot.”

“Of course, sire.” SkekUng tried not to bristle.   
  
  
“And, for the Gruenak…” SkekSo crouched to eye level with SkekUng, gripped him under the chin with talons digging in. “Find these _pirates_. Kill them. Not just them. Root out all the Gruenak. Kill them all.”

“All of them–?”

“ _Every last fucking Gruenak on Thra_. Can I be any clearer, SkekUng?”

The Emperor’s eyes glinted like ice, like the pallid blinding light of the Great Sun if you were dumb enough to stare into it. It unnerved SkekUng enough that the prospect of bloodshed didn’t even excite him. He forced himself to return the gaze. “You’ve made yourself perfectly clear. It will be so.”  


~~~  


SkekNa had, as urged, remained on SkekUng’s bed. Granted, he had left to avail himself of some small bit of the content of the Commander’s liquor cabinet, but he had come right back. “I am nothing if not diligent,” SkekNa murmured to himself, lounging back on a pile of pillows, and raising his glass in a toast to himself before tipping it back into his beak.

“Diligent? I _said_ not to set foot off that bed, kiznet, not even to steal my booze.”

SkekNa started, choked on his drink and spilled it all over himself and the pillows. “Shit! SkekUng, I didn’t even hear you come in.”

“Yeah, well, we’re all treading more lightly these days.”

The Slave-keeper scrambled up and over to the edge of the bed, relieved that SkekUng was back in one piece. Mostly. Deep claw gouges under his chin were still oozing blood. “Sorry I just spilled booze all over your bed. I’m a little drunk, you know.”

“I can see that, SkekNa.”

“Fortunately–” SkekNa tilted his head up and began licking at the gouges. “–I hear alcohol is good to put in a wound.”  
  
  
SkekUng emitted something between a growl and a sigh, claws curling around SkekNa’s nape. “Um, I don’t think it exactly works that way, but keep doing that. I got these on your account anyway.”

“I know. I said you didn’t have to.”

“You’d better thank the fucking Crystal that I did. He’d’ve ripped your other arm off, if you’d gone. I managed to aim most of his rage at SkekSa, where it’s pretty useless. And at the Gruenak. You and SkekLi aren’t off the hook though. He’s going to want to see you about your mistake at some point. I’d suggest just licking his feet and agreeing with anything he says.”

“Ugh.” SkekNa continued to lick at the wounds under SkekUng’s chin, a bit more slowly, making longer passes over swaths of uninjured skin, down and up his throat. “Hate to do it. I’ve done it before though.”

“Mmh,” SkekUng mumbled, in acknowledgment of the statement or in increased enjoyment at the attention being lavished on him, or both. He took hold of SkekNa’s shoulders and pushed him back with a grouchy look, pupils dilated. “You just had to start doing that, didn’t you? Don’t have time for this, sober up quick. There’s a task for you and SkekLi, Emperor’s orders.”   


~~~  
  


SkekLi wandered about his quarters in confusion, knowing the agonizing sobs–what was that, grief? anger?–were bound to return and hoping the sense of surreality would hold them off as long as possible. His rooms were unchanged after several unum away, just a layer of dust, but everything else was changed. He ran a hand over the top of the instrument in the sitting room, a Gelfling firca connected via a medium-sized box to a foot-pumped bellows with a tiny chair beside it, looked at the channel his hand left in the dust. Skeksis beaks weren’t exactly suited to wind instruments, but SkekLi had wanted to play one, and SkekTek had helped him to design and construct an alternative. It was better this way, anyhow, the bellows and the box gave the firca a distinct wheezy timbre and lower pitch that made it his own thing, and he could sing with it.

He remembered testing the thing out, maybe a hundred trine ago, him and SkekGra drunk as, well, lords, and both trying to sing an ancient Gelfling ballad along with it. SkekGra was a horrible singer, but that hadn’t mattered. Huffing quietly, SkekLi pulled his hand away from the instrument and wandered over to stare out of the tall window. Night was upon the plains now. 

Really, SkekGra’s exile should change nothing. SkekLi had gone with SkekNa on his Gruenak errand in the first place because he’d been resolved that he must become indifferent to SkekGra. He’d needed to turn a cold shoulder to the Conqueror, and what better way to do that than to take some time and distance, time spent as the sole traveling companion of a Skeksis known to be particularly lecherous? SkekNa wasn’t terribly likeable, but he was distracting. He was even more ungentle than the Conqueror (which was not a problem, a preference even), but lacked SkekGra’s particular brand of coldness. Everything had been such thin ice with SkekGra, who would rarely even touch anyone unless he were a bit drunk, and wouldn’t suffer anyone to sleep and wake beside him unless he got so drunk he forgot himself. SkekLi had taken advantage on a few occasions, when SkekGra was that bloody inebriated, sleeping curled up against his blacked out colleague. Granted, the Satirist was a Skeksis, and Skeksis were opportunists by nature, but upon some deeper reflection it hadn’t sat right. SkekNa, of all people, had unwittingly helped to shed light on how right it didn’t sit, when he woke up in a tangle of limbs with SkekLi and made nothing of it at all, instead of giving SkekLi that _look_ –that look SkekGra had given him, the last time it happened, as though SkekLi were a pile of phegnese dung. 

He shook his head violently. Why revisit these memories yet again, when the point of going away had been to blunt the sharpness of their edges? Why persist in agonizing over it, when the person who had driven him to distraction had done him the very kind favor of getting himself exiled? SkekLi would never see SkekGra again, and that was just as well.

“And _why_ –” SkekLi muttered aloud, “Isn’t this petty, to be considering? After what– _happened_ to him?”

He clutched his face in his hands and turned away from the window, resuming his pacing. The sense of panic was roiling up in his guts again. Actually, maybe what had happened to SkekGra did not help at all, in terms of forgetting about him, despite the whole exile thing. Thinking about that–Skeksis jeering, throwing things, closing in and biting and tearing, and then that fucking nail–swept away any sandy foundation of indifference SkekLi had been trying to construct. It made him want to find SkekGra, curl up around him and keep him safe from anyone else who would harm him.

“Hah!” The Satirist spat. What a joke, and not a very amusing one. As though he could have done anything to stop it, even had he been present. As though SkekGra would have wanted his pity. Apparently SkekGra only wanted such comfort from his UrRu, which was a whole different puzzle. 

How under the six lights of Thra had that come to be? SkekLi could not even imagine it–the Conqueror, urging unity with those weird slow creatures, making a case for the Skeksis to essentially kill themselves in some process of metaphysical horror, and wandering off into the desert nice and cozy with his corresponding Mystic. Just–how? 

_“How!?_ ” SkekLi kicked the wall, then hopped around cursing at the pain in his foot, which was welcome. It kept a part of his mind in physical reality, kept him from spiraling into a fit of lunatic laughter trying to figure it out. Perhaps he’d have liked to sit down with SkekGra and ask him calmly, out of the same fascination he’d always felt toward the Conqueror, _How did this come to be? What was your thought process? What does it feel like_? Maybe he’d prefer to whack him one across the snout and scream at him, _How could you do this? You spurned all warmth, all closeness, you told me you cared for nothing but yourself. How the fuck could you do this? What makes this Mystic so bloody precious?_

As to the general sense of indignation permeating the Castle, that SkekGra had betrayed the Skeksis and deserved his fate? That seemed like rubbish. Where was the harm in bringing a new suggestion to the table? Skeksis were often afraid of new information, particularly SkekSo, who sought to control the inflow of information, or its reception if it could not be deflected, and thus mold the minds of the Skeksis to his will. SkekLi didn’t know how many of the others were cognizant of the Emperor’s manipulative prowess, but he himself had seen it from day one. That was why he was the Satirist now. The only commentary he could safely make on the state of affairs was couched in humor. SkekGra was the only person he’d ever really opened his mind to about that, about the lies and nonsense that underpinned their entire sociopolitical existence–and the Conqueror had neither agreed nor argued, but always listened to him and never betrayed his confidences. 

SkekLi suddenly started in excitement. “Ah!” he squawked. Of course. SkekGra had found new information of some sort, and he had changed his opinion in light of that new information, like a reasonable person.   
  
  
The Satirist laughed in relief, perhaps mildly hysterical to have found a solution to the agonizing conundrum and the circles his mind was running. SkekGra was a cold person. If he were not so toward the Mystic, it was because he had changed. SkekLi laughed harder and harder, leaning back against the wall with his arms curled over his stomach, tearing up with laughter. This explained everything. SkekGra must have changed for the better, because he was intelligent and open enough to do so, given reasonable data. Maybe, the person SkekGra was now would not be so aloof, to SkekLi.

  
Not that it should matter. SkekGra was out of reach, and SkekLi’s supposition couldn’t be proven. Nor could it be disproven. It was more than sufficient, now, to halt the anguish of his mind, to believe in the best possible version of events, the one in which there might exist a SkekGra who would not have turned SkekLi away, the one in which SkekGra was in the right and SkekSo was in the wrong.  
  
  
Gripped by a sort of mania, SkekLi skittered around his apartments, dusting off surfaces, talking to himself under his breath in a chaotic mix of various languages no one else in the Castle was likely to know–just to be safe–cursing the Skeksis and their small-mindedness and their brutality.   
  
  
“When the Castle is quiet again,” he chattered to himself in, possibly a bit ironically, Gruenak, “when things are as normal–Then, I’ll go to the Desert, I’ll find SkekGra, I’ll tell him–I’ll tell him–” He stopped and canted his head at nothing in particular. What _would_ he tell him? No matter, it would be some time before it was safe to even dare such a venture.

  
A rap at the door stopped that slightly preemptive line of thought short. SkekLi glanced down to make sure he’d remembered to change out of the outdated clothes–yes, he had, must have done so automatically–and crept to the door. He opened it as slowly and cautiously as everyone seemed to be doing these days, to find SkekUng and SkekNa huddled closely together in the hall.   
  
  
SkekUng wasn’t one for formality. “Ah, you changed out of those wretched clothes already. Might want to change back into them, or something else you don’t mind getting blood on.”   
  
  
~~~  
  


SkekTek intended to work on his latest project well into the night. Mercifully, the Emperor hadn’t been inclined to intrude upon the laboratory of late, there being no research in progress of interest to him. Even the execrable Chamberlain seemed to be laying low and rarely stuck his beak in to vex the Scientist. SkekTek had assembled all three of the Gruenak laboratory assistants, to their annoyance. They would rather be asleep, or socializing in their meagre quarters, at this hour. They didn’t openly protest, of course, but their dull-eyed, slow-moving compliance made their displeasure known. 

“A good evening, SkekTek.” 

The Scientist started, prepared to be terrified or irritated, but the voice was only that of SkekLi, one of the few Skeksis who had thus far failed to offend or abuse him. 

“Ah! Satirist, no one told me you’d returned, welcome back, we had no idea where you–” 

SkekTek had been moved to turn away from his work and shuffle toward the wide entryway, but now he saw that SkekLi was there with SkekNa. SkekNa was not a pleasant character: vicious, dull-witted, no interest in learning about the world around him, would probably mate with a fizzgig if nothing else were available–

The Slave-keeper was well aware of SkekTek’s dislike. “Yes, I’m here too. We only just got back this afternoon. Please, try to contain your delight.”

Realizing his beak had fallen open in consternation at SkekNa’s presence, SkekTek shut it slowly and took a steadying breath. “Such a relief to know you’re both safe within our walls again. Your whereabouts were long uncertain.”

“Long story.” SkekNa craned his neck into the space, his eyes settling on the halfheartedly-working cluster of Gruenak. “We’re going to need to…talk to your assistants there.”

“Beg pardon?” An inexplicable bristling of feathers ran down the back of SkekTek’s neck.

SkekLi cast SkekNa a pointed look, muttering in an undertone, and in his characteristically exasperated yet cajoling way, “ _Please._ ”   
  
  
SkekNa waved his hook with an air of impatience. “Fine.”

The Satirist slunk up close to SkekTek, giving him what seemed an earnestly regretful look. “My lord Scientist, I regret we bring unfortunate tidings along with us. The Gruenak have–demonstrated that they have no regard for the Empire, for the Skeksis’ mandate to protect the Crystal and be as its hands and eyes upon Thra. There will be no mercy. You…will, I fear, need to find new assistants.”

“ _What_?!” SkekTek screeched. “If you’re saying you’re going to–” He lowered his voice, leaning in and hissing. While he knew but a smattering of the Gruenak language, they knew much more of his speech, as was required of them. It wouldn’t do for them to hear, to panic. “–You intend to execute my lab assistants, SkekLi? I’ll grant they’re sometimes surly, but they’re clever, and of all the peoples of Thra they’re the most apt to–”   
  
  
“Forgive, SkekTek, the matter has no bearing on your Gruenak in particular. All of them– _all_ of them must be dispatched. Within the Castle, this task has fallen to myself and SkekNa.”   
  
  
“ _All_ of–? Do you mean you intend to exterminate an entire–”

“To dispatch them, as the Emperor has willed it.”

“I don’t believe you. This is some prank.” SkekTek glared over SkekLi’s shoulder, at SkekNa, and murmured very close to SkekLi’s ear, “He’s put you up to this? Why do you hang about with such–”

“My missing arm doesn’t impact my hearing, SkekTek,” SkekNa put in, with a languid sort of malice.  
  
  
SkekLi tried to speak in placating tones. He didn’t seem to be enjoying the situation at all. “Our presence here is mandated by the Emperor, SkekTek. If you’d like, please go inquire of him yourself, we’ll wait.”

  
SkekTek felt his resistance deflating. No one would put their neck on the line by involving the Emperor in a prank, especially not during these times. Anyway, it was better to lose a few servants than to approach SkekSo in his current mood. “I…I see. Permit me to express that I’m quite–stunned. Certainly I would never question the most estimable will of our Emperor. This has been a surprise, though.”

“Of course. We can take them away, if you wish to tell them to go with us.”

SkekTek considered. The idea of having to watch his assistants cut out from under his nose, to clean up the laboratory floor afterward, was uninspiring. On the other hand, this was the first generation of Gruenak to have been….recruited to the Castle. They were hard to find, and not very numerous, and thus SkekTek had never had the opportunity to euthanize and dissect one. Some advantage may as well be seized of this unfortunate turn of events. Perhaps the other two would just leave the Gruenak where they fell, and then there would be three freshly deceased specimens of an as-yet-unstudied species, right at his feet.

“Oh–” The Scientist made a point of agonizing over the decision. “It’s fine, I’m sure you have other things to do and would prefer to–dispatch this quickly. It’s not like worse things haven’t spilled on this floor.”

“You’re sure? As you like.” SkekLi approached the three Gruenak with a friendly bearing, talking to them in their language, a bit of which SkekTek could make out. SkekNa followed on his heels, making some (rather unsuccessful) effort to appear innocuous. “Hello there! What are you working on? I hear you’re very good helpers, very clever–”

SkekNa and SkekLi seized two of the Gruenak simultaneously, slitting their throats. While the third was panicking between fight or flight, SkekNa dropped his first victim and dealt with the remaining one rather more brutally, opening the tines of his hook and angling the sharpest edge upward, disemboweling it with a swipe. SkekLi, devoid of the malicious delight evinced by his companion, slowly let the Gruenak in his grasp slide to the floor. 

SkekTek winced as the first two bled out quickly and the third curled in on itself and moaned. He’d have liked to take SkekNa to task for that last one. That was messier than necessary, and had ruined a perfectly good anatomical specimen. The Scientist was pondering the merits of going up and grabbing SkekLi’s knife and putting a quick end to the final Gruenak, when SkekSo appeared suddenly and silently in the laboratory. SkekTek yelped in shock, and cringed almost to the floor in his dread. 

SkekSo ignored him and strode over to the bloody scene near the opening to the glowing Crystal shaft. SkekLi and SkekNa reacted much the same as SkekTek himself just had, shrinking down low near the floor. The Scientist wondered if the two had seen the Emperor since their return. It also occurred to him to wonder whether they were in trouble for something, as SkekSo stood over all five of the creatures on the floor before him and looked down with contempt. After what may have only been a few beats, but seemed far too long, SkekSo aimed a surprisingly well-placed kick at the first Gruenak carcass and sent it tumbling into the fiery pit.

SkekTek cursed internally at the very great waste, quivering wretchedly and not moving from his spot. To request that SkekSo stop would clearly be disastrous. Had he known this would happen, he would have had the Gruenak removed from the lab before dying. Now there would be a mess to clean up, with nothing to show for it.

The second carcass was administered a similar kick, but this one collided with SkekNa, who skittered back to avoid being jostled any closer to the edge of the shaft and then finished pushing it in himself. 

The third was still writhing in its slow demise. SkekSo, either not wanting to get entrails on his feet and robes or desiring to prolong the event, gave this last Gruenak a lighter kick that only moved it a few inches. It groaned, trailing its innards behind it, pleading piteously with SkekLi in its own tongue as it slowly progressed by kicks and starts toward the edge where the floor gave way to warm, roiling air. SkekTek found himself trying to forget what he knew of that language, so as not to hear the content of the pleas, which SkekLi was powerless to answer. The Satirist put his head in his hands for a moment, then made himself look back up with visible effort.

When the Gruenak at last slipped over the edge with a final wail, SkekSo gazed down into the pit after it for a long moment, contemplating his work with apparent satisfaction. Then he turned and cast a long, impassive stare down his beak at SkekNa. The Slave-keeper deepened his already cringing posture by lowering his head. Yes, these two were definitely in some sort of trouble with the Emperor. SkekTek deduced that whatever had caused their long and unplanned absence from the Castle must pertain to the trouble. Being the vehicle for the sudden slaughter of the Gruenak was part of their punishment, or at least a service rendered in penance. It was clearly no punishment to SkekNa, but SkekLi was another matter. When the Emperor’s gaze turned on him, he responded quite differently than SkekNa, tilting his head up to stare back. It may have seemed insolent under other circumstances, but the Satirist had always had a good read on SkekSo, and seemed to know that the Emperor wanted to observe whatever the pleading Gruenak had left in SkekLi’s eyes. SkekTek shuddered, and cast his own eyes down quickly when SkekSo released the Satirist and turned on his heel and left the room with not a word spoken to anyone.

A long pause ensued. Eventually SkekNa regained his feet, clearly still rattled, but not without his typical sadistic smugness at the prospect of continued violence. “Well, we’ve still got five more left.”

SkekLi followed him out more slowly, pausing near the Scientist. “Sorry. About the mess.”

The Satirist was shaking. SkekTek couldn’t find it in him to be amused at the other’s plight, as he would have with many of the Skeksis who had been toward him disdainful, demanding, or ungrateful. “Could be worse,” he shrugged generously. “Not that much left to clean up.”

“Even so. Sorry,” SkekLi said quietly, before hastening to catch up with SkekNa. This, he said in the Gruenak tongue, and possibly he’d not even been speaking to SkekTek. _Kill me_ , the third Gruenak had begged.


	5. Advise You What You Say; the Minister is Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SkekSo consults his spiritual advisor, while SkekLi reminisces and acts rashly. SkekOk is a tad concerned. (Meanwhile, SkekNa continues to have an okay time.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Argh sorry this one is ridiculously long by comparison with the prior chapters.
> 
> ***Chapter warnings***  
> All warnings below apply to one scene only. If anyone wants to skip the scene, it starts with “all of the lights were out,” and scene breaks are indicated by “~~~”:  
> References to offscreen noncon, Skeksis cultural norms that any sane human would interpret as r*pe apologism, hints at trauma from aforementioned offscreen, and a consensual-but-mutually-exploitative sexual situation (which is also the most explicit thing I've written so far).

“Why are they all skulking like cowards?” SkekSo complained, his rage somewhat sated by the bloody business with the Gruenak, in seeing SkekLi’s normally bright eyes glazed with shame and fear and resentment. It had shaken him out of his vicious torpor a bit. The Heretic’s betrayal had hit him worse than he liked to admit. Part if it was fear that the dangerous propaganda he’d been spouting might have found some foothold; it was for that very reason that SkekSo had rather quickly had SkekGra and his UrRu dealt with and expelled from the Castle. Out of sight, out of mind. Except, it would not leave the Emperor’s mind. The sheer audacity, the lunacy, the shock of having one of his most deranged (yet also one of his most calculating) Skeksis turn on him and yap about peace with the wretched Mystics– This had kept him in an almost trancelike state of rage for days upon days, and he was starting to realize that it had to be detrimental to morale, that his entire court was mortified of him. Not the proper level of mortified that was his due, but so gripped with dread that possibly he stood to lose their regard if this went on much longer. This course needed to be reversed.

“My Emperor…” SkekZok sounded wary, in addition to weary. He paced the throne room at SkekSo’s elbow but slightly behind him, talons clasped, posture slightly more hunched and deferent than was his wont. “This accursed business has shaken us all. Your wrath is righteous. However, pardon me, the court is currently terrified of you, excessively so. I don’t believe this–” He gestured around at the dim lighting, the lack of musicians, the dour and threatening atmosphere that lay over the space like a shroud. “–is helping them to feel welcome. If I might humbly offer my opinion…”

“You might. Yes, go on!”

“I would think it well to light up this room as it has always been, to bring the musicians back–”

“They’re so bloody noisy, they interrupt my–” SkekSo stopped short. He’d been about to say “meditations,” but he realized that by now it came down more to “sulking.”

SkekZok waited for a long time for the sentence to be completed, then resumed carefully when it continued to dangle, “The Castle must be as it once was. One of its….shall we say, its louder components…is now languishing in the desert, as he should be. Yet we must resume business as usual. You will forgive, my lord, if I observe that this state of affairs is giving the Heretic entirely too much power.”

The Emperor snarled and whirled on SkekZok, raising a hand. He had never actually struck his Priest though. People who struck the Priest lost a hand. SkekZok blinked at him innocently, and SkekSo let out a long, rasping breath through his teeth. “He has been stripped of rank, of name, of welcome in these lands, of some part of his mind; even of the dignity of being called a Skeksis, since he does not wish to be one; he _has_ _no power_.”

SkekZok’s face contorted just slightly, a dubious little grimace. 

SkekSo sighed. “Speak your mind.”   
  


“His name may be gone, but he has power here because there’s only silence in its place. My lord, you’re allowing him, by his absence, to be present.”

“Come again?”

“The silence of his absence is very loud. It has the court spooked. Something else must be made to fill this silence. Which is why I’d advise resuming your regular habits, acting like it never happened. That is your message, after all, am I wrong? that the Heretic _never happened_. SkekOk has been tending to the histories accordingly.”

“Hmm.” SkekSo nodded, resuming his pacing. “Wise counsel. I must say, SkekZok, I’ve been…very distracted by this offense to the Empire, to Skeksis, to myself, to everything we’ve worked to build since that bloody Crystal tried to destroy us. If one so high as the Heretic might fall, how does one ensure it never happens again? I mean, we punished him, we set a fearful example. But–” At last fully apprehending the axis of his obsessive ire, the Emperor snarled and stuck the floor with the butt end of his sceptre, not flagging in his pace. “–we did not punish him _enough._ Not nearly enough. Such an offense, high treason against the Empire, ought to have earned him days of torment. Sure, that nail was very dramatic, a nice flourish, an image that won’t quickly leave anyone’s mind, but–” He stopped again, whirling to stare earnestly up at his Priest, who almost ran into him in his attempt to join the sudden halt. “It was not enough. That is why _he_ won’t let me rest. I should have held him for days, for an unum, until he was pleading for death. I didn’t do enough.”

SkekZok studied him closely for a long beat. SkekSo knew the other’s eyes were similar to his own, too pale, too keen. For an uncanny instant, he felt as though he must now know something of what the rest of them experienced when subjected to his own scrutiny. The Priest would never say it, but he was not displeased by any means to see SkekSo so frazzled and uncertain, to be the only one to bear witness to it. After savoring the moment with a barely-visible twitch at the corner of his beak, SkekZok answered in reassuring tones, “That would have been more than merited. However, sire, you acted wisely, to speed the Heretic on his way. To prolong his punishment would have been to grant a space here to all his heresy, all the pollution that emanates from his spirit, to possibly corrupt the minds of some of the weaker Skeksis while he still remained here. You did well to finish with him quickly.”

“I did,” the Emperor agreed, automatically. “But that doesn’t rid me of the sense that it was not enough.”

SkekZok made a smug noise, almost a purr, under his breath. “Then someone else must be punished, in order to restore balance to this place. You’re right, my lord, the offense still lies heavy upon the Castle. It all happened so quickly. There was no closure, no catharsis. Someone must be…” His eyes moved up toward the vaulted ceiling where it lay in profound shadow, as though inspiration might be found there. “Someone must serve out the unspoken, unfulfilled remainder of the Heretic’s castigation.”  
  
“Mmh.” SkekSo’s tail lashed, perhaps a bit too eagerly. “Yes, someone must be punished. More in the usual way though. Just enough to–to remind everyone. No exile, just a regular punishment where they remain with us and we eventually all pretend it never happened. To help return things to normal.”

“I could…I could invent somewhat, some sort of, shall we say, ritual for it.”

“For punishment?”

“Yes. Something said or done the same way each time. A mantra of sorts, perhaps, a call and response. Something new to add to Skeksis culture. We ought, my Emperor, to be building ourselves up, to be celebrating who and what we are as a people; not letting the words of one who would undermine our culture–indeed, our very existence–sow doubt or rob us of our joy.”

“Ahh.” SkekSo could feel himself genuinely grinning, for the first time since SkekGra had crashed their evening meal with his “guest” at his side. “You and your fondness for ritual. Would you rather be, say, a Ritual-Master than a Priest? Think up a good one, and you shall be.”   
  
  
~~~  


If the worst that happened was that he were compelled to execute a few Gruenak, SkekLi could count himself lucky. Perhaps the blood shouldn’t have bothered him as much is it did, as it streamed off him in cloudy rivulets to turn his bath an unwholesome salmon hue. The Satirist was far from a martial Skeksis, and not as much inclined to violence as most of his kith. But of course, he’d killed the odd Podling just as anyone else had, in drunken vexation or boredom or Thra knew what; to say nothing of the raids he and even SkekOk had been in during their early days as the Conqueror’s translation and transcription crew. Before the colonizing venture had become more strident, been taken farther field and joined by the Gelfling armies now under the sway of the Skeksis, SkekGra had enjoyed sniffing out obscure little tribes at the fringes of Skarith, races or even whole species which Gelfling did not seem to know about. These had been his testing ground. The Conqueror would extend to these good folk the benefits of the Empire, its protection and trade connections, in exchange for fealty and tithes. Those who’d agree were welcomed in. Those who had not agreed were exterminated in short order. It hadn’t taken much of a crew to make an end to some of those smallest settlements; most such small folk hadn’t wielded a blade except to skin prey from their traps, and even a tiny band of Skeksis, only one of them actually good with weapons, could leave their habitations silent forever. 

The comradery of those early ventures had made it fun to SkekLi, more than the bloodletting itself. And–ah, watching the Conqueror slay was terrifying in a way that made him want to do the opposite of flee. It would be his luck, to be drawn to someone so paradoxical. SkekGra was like the suns bearing down on the desert, laughing and merciless in slaughter; like the suns on the water, sparkling with delight at discovering some new language or creature. But, between his light and fire–a glacial gulf. SkekLi discovered this early, when Skeksis were still new and behaved more like animals, when he made one bid at rubbing up under SkekGra’s chin and was roundly backhanded. So, SkekLi waited numerous trine, not exactly _plotting,_ but noting SkekGra’s moods down in a secret language under his ribs.

He’d taken his opportunity where it had come. It hadn’t been planned, but nor had it been particularly unwatched-for. SkekGra had exasperatedly whisked him out from under the potential fallout of one of his more memorable stunts in court, and they’d both been drinking, and things went as they would. 

That was how things had continued to go, with drunken aggression being the only pretext under which SkekLi could get what he wanted from SkekGra. The Satirist didn’t mind the nature of the sex, but it had become like a game, the fact that he always pretended it was a fight even when he’d rather not have. SkekGra didn’t appreciate a lack of fight. One might have thought someone called the Conqueror could have accepted a glad surrender, but a melee always needed to be made of it even though they both knew what the end result would be. Any divergent format to proceedings made SkekGra seem confused and vaguely angry or upset. 

SkekLi let the sullied water run pass his ankles and down the drain, crouching in the basin, and began to refill the bath. There had been few exceptions to the pattern, and all protruded from his memory like the leaning crystal pillars out in the Desert named for them. The final one had resulted in his sitting in a similar bloodied bath, after he’d thrown himself on the tender mercies of SkekNa and SkekUng in the bathhouse, goaded them into inflicting the most painful attentions he could bear, to try and distract from the harm SkekGra had just given him with that _look_. That look had conveyed plainly that SkekGra would have preferred to wake up with a rotting carcass, that SkekLi had overstepped, had taken far too great a freedom with the other’s inebriation–to dare touch and speak to him softly (did SkekGra remember _any_ of that conversation, and if so, which bits?) and remain in his bed through the night. He’d left with SkekNa shortly after that. 

Guilt and melancholy settled over SkekLi. He draped his chin over the edge of the tub. Maybe, if he hadn’t been a coward and run from his problems, none of this would have happened. One never knew what would alter the arathim’s-web of fate. Maybe, just possibly, SkekGra wouldn’t have been at whatever place or in whatever position had caused him to literally or figuratively collide with his Mystic. Maybe, at least, those Gruenak would be alive; they hadn’t exactly deserved this. He sighed deeply, water dripping from his beak down onto his washroom floor. 

One must remember though! He’d come up with a solution, thought it was difficult to refocus on after having been interrupted by the night’s bloody task. One must remember and be of good heart; SkekGra was gone because he was intelligent enough to be swayed by new information, and the information had clearly changed him, and maybe if SkekLi ever saw him again the eyes he looked into would not be filled with contempt. The initial giddiness of this hypothesis didn’t revisit the Satirist, but he still accepted it gladly as the most reasonable explanation for SkekGra’s behavior. It was the explanation that granted SkekLi the most mercy. He had to accept it, given no contradiction. He would hold this under his ribs and consider it, the same as he’d always considered everything about the Conquer-that-once-was.

~~~

The hour was late. SkekNa was no longer clear whether he were exhausted or weirdly energized. At the day’s outset, he’d not been sure whether they would reach the Castle before night descended. Since then, he’d stumbled into the biggest drama the court had ever sustained, shared a weird interlude of solidarity with the Satirist, had been unprecedentedly relieved to see SkekUng again, and had let the blood of numerous Gruenak run over his talons. He sat in a crouched position on his own bed, shoulders and chin drawn up, several layers of dark rugs and quilts laid down beneath him to avoid sullying his bedclothes, as SkekUng prowled around him and groomed away all the Gruenak blood with excruciating attention to detail. This was part of what SkekNa liked so much about SkekUng; he preferred to keep things simple, but he knew exactly when and where to mind the detail, to an exquisitely sharp-honed point. 

He tried to let SkekUng’s tongue rasp the blood out of his feathers and flesh without getting excessively aroused, though it wasn’t far from his mind and, he knew perfectly well, not far from the other’s mind. It was one of the reasons they got on. SkekUng had gone once over the outer layer of his feathers, which, granted, was both thinner and covered less of him than it had when they were younger, and over the flesh of his hands, forearms, face, neck, and any other areas the blood had touched; now SkekUng was nosing into the underdown around his nape and shoulders, probing in aggressively, both cleaning and claiming him. 

SkekNa hadn’t been exactly sure what he’d say, if and when he said anything, but what popped out of his mouth regarded the creed of the Heretic. “This idea–that there’s some plodding, dull-snouted fool out in that wretched valley, who’s part of–of…"

"Yeah.” SkekUng homed in on a particular spot just behind and above the hollow of SkekNa’s collarbone, gripping neck and shoulder in his long claws like a vice as though the other held any thought of escape, tongue poking and smoothing by turns. “Damned ridiculous. Disgusting. There's a reason the Heretic suffered for saying, doing what he did. I’d probably be better off warning Satirist, considering, but, SkekNa–Your smart mouth needs to watch that you never speak his name." SkekUng drew back to shake his head, scattering drool. "You’re already missing enough.”

“‘Missing’? I thought my substandard form amused you, my Commander." It hadn’t escaped SkekNa’s notice that SkekUng enjoyed nosing and biting around the stump of his arm, although only on the rare occasions that SkekNa voluntarily detached his hook in the other’s presence. No one else ever saw him without the hook. 

“You’re not substandard, and you’ll always amuse me,” SkekUng ceded, with uncommon charity, “but–let’s keep you as you are.”

SkekNa snickered, a bit overloud. He’d meant it to come out soft, subtle. “What if–you know how I am–What if, hypothetically, I’m once again altered by the mercy of the Emperor? Would you find someone a bit prettier to divert yourself with?”

SkekUng had grasped him by the throat in half an instant. “You think I’m that fucking shallow? Your life is mine. _You_ said that, and I never disagreed. Your life is mine, regardless of what alterations it takes. Are we clear?” He tightened his jaws a bit for emphasis, just enough to lightly break skin.

SkekNa shivered, a delightful kind of fear. “Clear.” A different thought occurred to him, apropos of nothing, or maybe only too relevant. He cast a furtive glance around the room, though they were alone. "And...Say you should be Emperor, SkekUng?"

"Eh?" The other loosed his hold to draw back and blink quizzically. This had never been openly discussed, only couched in what subtext two such blunt persons as themselves were capable of.

"It might be, in time,” SkekNa said soothingly.

SkekUng looked mightily pleased, and maybe even a bit self-conscious. “Treason, SkekNa. Our Emperor is in the prime of his life.”

“Yes, but,” SkekNa leaned up against SkekUng, offering his throat again, “hypothetically.”

“All right, hypothetically, what of it?”

“My attitude is disrespectful and perverse."

"True." SkekUng licked at SkekNa’s throat, this time removing the pinpoints of blood he’d caused. “Hypothetically. _You_ would not be changed by my ascent. Not your attitude, not your form. Why would I change you? I would expect exactly the same of you then, as now.” He resumed picking flecks of blood from SkekNa’s underdown with his tongue and fangs, resuming as well the earlier topic. “Hang this notion of–of lost parts of ourselves lazing around in that valley. Why change what has really, in all this world, been part of me?”

  


~~~

  


All of the lights were out. SkekLi curled in the cushioned window seat in his sitting room, tail wrapped over his snout like a muski, looking at the lights outside–the moons, stars, the intermittent fleeting glow of some bioluminescent flier. He knew he ought to retire to his bedchamber, to try and sleep, but the memory most strongly tied to his present seat sent up quiet tendrils to hold him there.

The time he’d woken in SkekGra’s bed, to SkekGra’s contempt, had merely been the catalyst to send SkekLi fleeing to the coast in SkekNa’s company. He’d known before then, maybe an unum before, that he was doomed. He remembered sitting in this same spot, picking away at a kalimba, trying to make some sound to do justice to the rain plunking against the window, the drops sliding down along their mysterious paths after dashing themselves on the pane. A knock had sounded on his door, aggressive but strangely furtive. He’d not been expecting anyone and didn’t move from his spot. “Come in?”

The door creaked open hesitantly and admitted an atypically subdued SkekGra. 

SkekLi restrained himself from jumping up to greet the unexpected company. “Ah! A pleasant but unlooked for surprise, my lord.” He canted his head at the way SkekGra was looking back at the door. “Yes, it’s as good locked as it is unlocked, maybe better.”

The Conqueror locked the door behind him and took a few more steps into the middle of the room, seeming a bit lost. “I–shouldn’t just barge in on you, SkekLi–”

“Shut up, SkekGra, you’re fine. I was just talking to the rain, or making some attempt to.”

“Hm.” SkekGra failed to make either an intellectual discourse or an argument out of SkekLi’s statement, a dire sign indeed. 

“Make yourself at home. You know where the liquor is, and the books. What can I do for you?”

“I…” SkekGra cast around, and, of all spots, sat himself down on the little stool that went with the bellows-firca. He looked quite out of place there with his casually imposing bearing and his regalia. The crest of grey-blue feathers crowning his head was flattened unhappily, a rare sight. “I suppose sometimes, one wants company that isn’t a horde of groveling Gelfling. And there are only so many Skeksis in this blasted Castle at any given time…”

“Something on your mind, Conqueror?” 

SkekGra made a quiet huffing sound, a bit nasal, one of those higher-pitched-than-expected, ridiculous noises that sometimes came out of him. 

SkekLi shrugged, trying not to act intrigued. His impulse was to go over and ask a lot of questions, or lick SkekGra from nose to nail, or both, but the other had never acted this dejected around him. A wrong move might rankle SkekGra’s pride and send him fleeing. “I see. Feel free to avail yourself of–anything in these chambers. If you want to just lurk around, that’s fine, I’m not doing anything in particular.” The Satirist tried to resume his musical pursuit, now feeling self-conscious.

“What is that tune?” SkekGra said quietly, at length.

“I don’t know. I make it up as I go, like everything else. It’s for the rain. Specifically–” SkekLi kept the barest hint of the music going with one hand, tracing the trail of one of the raindrops with the other. “–how the droplets strike this surface, and the trails they run in their death throes. Do they know which course to run? Is it random? But! You see, either way, It all goes back down to the river in the end.”

“Hmh!” The other’s interest seemed momentarily snagged, and then the dreary silence returned. A few minutes later, SkekLi heard SkekGra clattering about quietly, or as quietly as SkekGra was capable of. The Conqueror appeared in the Satirist’s peripheral vision wielding one of those citrusy liqueurs that struck harder than their scent and taste would suggest, swigging right out of the bottle, and then handed the bottle down. SkekLi tried not to brush his fingers too noticeably, tipped the bottle and his head back enough to get just a bit down his own gullet, and handed it back up as the warmth rushed into his head.

SkekGra took another overly long swig, and then a deep breath as though steeling himself, then paused again for some time before saying simply, “SkekZok.”

“Ah.” The trouble was evident in the tone accompanying the name, though it was a trouble Skeksis rarely spoke about. One was generally obliged to submit to any advances from a higher-ranking individual, as a matter of course, whether one enjoyed it or not. This would have horrified the Gelfling, who would view such a thing as morally wrong and criminal, but Skeksis had little care for ethics and their ideas of what constituted crime were quite different. There was some ambiguity as to whether SkekZok outranked SkekSil, SkekVar, or SkekGra, but the Conqueror had done something the other day to annoy the Emperor and was in a temporary state of slight disfavor. That would tip the scales in the Priest’s favor, and the Priest of course, unlike the clergy of some societies, was permitted any carnal indulgences that lay within his power. SkekGra had to deal with less of this sort of thing than most of the lower-ranking Skeksis did, and perhaps it wounded and angered him the more for its rarity. Even so, it wasn’t an experience Skeksis would generally choose to acknowledge, especially not the Conqueror. It must really have unsettled him, for him to wander in here to unburden himself to SkekLi. Quite likely, he was as troubled by his need to do so as he was by the ordeal itself.

  
SkekLi kept up a bit of aimless plucking at the kalimba’s tines, no real tune anymore at all, just a pretense of continuing his own activities. SkekGra would be mortified, likely angry, if SkekLi expressed pity or indignation. The Satirist said carefully, “Not a personage whose company I’ve ever enjoyed, in any capacity.” 

“Indeed. I find him–” SkekGra lowered his voice. “Gross. His smugness. His stupid clothes. Although he should really keep those on, at all times.”

“I agree completely. Do you need anyone to take it out on?”   
  
  
“Don’t fucking touch me, you little creep,” was the hissed reply, although SkekLi had not.

“Of course not. I just meant–if it would help you.” 

That had evidently been the wrong thing to say. “I don’t need your fucking help, SkekLi. Literally. Why would you even think I would want to–after–” SkekGra swayed a bit, rather intoxicated, and leaned against the edge of the window.

“All right, all right. Needn’t be rude to me in my own home.” SkekLi felt a stirring of argumentativeness. He did argue a lot with SkekGra, although the arguments were meaningless. He tried to put a lid on it. Now wasn’t the time.

“Yeah, whatever, like I need a lecture on manners from you.” SkekGra staggered back half the length of the room to crumple in a huff on the chaise longue. 

“Your entire existence needs a lecture on manners, SkekGra.” Maybe it would help to banter and bicker with him like normal? But, there was no response of any sort. SkekLi shrugged and resumed looking out the window. He was presently struck by a new idea. “This one time, I was at the edge of the swamp, sort of a marshy area, right? I saw this sogbird find some kind of mollusk in the mud, something with a very shiny iridescent shell, and pluck it up in its beak. This bird flew off like it was very pleased with itself, as though it had done anything special or clever to deserve this shiny shell, when really all it had done was seen that it was there. It had done no work for it, nothing to merit it. It held it as though it had any business touching it. To be quite honest with you, I thought it looked very stupid, in its arrogance.” 

“Ah, an allegory! I might have known.” SkekGra sounded less exasperated than he seemed to be trying to sound. SkekLi glanced back and saw that he was actually smirking a bit as he lay staring up at the ceiling.

SkekLi resumed his music, the silence from his guest stretching so long that he thought perhaps SkekGra had passed out. He began quietly humming a counterpoint. Suddenly a larger form plopped down in the window seat beside him, causing him to start. Before he could react, SkekGra had pulled him close and was pawing and licking at him with an unusual fervor, but also almost gently. This was practically without precedent; usually, with them, any sort of intimate touch only happened at least somewhat roughly and after one had physically attacked the other. SkekLi didn’t let his astonishment keep him from seizing the moment. He crawled onto SkekGra’s lap, tangling their tails, smoothing down the Conquer’s neckfeathers with one hand and reaching another down his collar to caress his bony chest. He hadn’t known _just_ how hungry he’d been for this–this stillness, this calm sort of ardor that wasn’t couched in a struggle. He licked the edge of the other’s beak, the sharp protruding fangs, trying to contain the mewling moan that wanted to escape him as SkekGra’s hands traveled slowly down his back and stopped near the base of his tail. That noise was dangerous, they did not make that sort of noise together, they made growls and snarls. That noise might scare SkekGra away.

Picking SkekLi up, SkekGra tottered back to the chaise longue, letting himself tumble backward onto it with the Satirist on top of him. SkekLi peered down in fascination. He was used to looking up at SkekGra. He’d been hoping that at best the other would be minded to vent his anger at SkekZok, to fuck viciously, but this almost tender mood was the last thing he’d expected. They were slowly undressing each other as they nosed and licked at each other, both wet, pressing more urgently against each other. SkekGra mumbled something unintelligible.

“What?”

“Don’t want to take it out on you. Want you to…erase it…erase him.” 

“Whatever you want.” 

SkekLi almost slid onto SkekGra’s erection, far too eager to need any fumbling hands, but the other grasped his hips to stop him. “No, I mean–erase what _he_ did.” 

“–Oh.” 

SkekLi gaped a bit. SkekGra did not enjoy being penetrated, and SkekLi preferred being on the receiving end in any case, and that arrangement hadn’t been deviated from. The Priest must have left quite a sense of unrest in SkekGra, for him to even ask for this. Actually, it did make SkekLi feel jealous, almost possessive, to imagine someone else doing something to SkekGra that he’d never been able to do. “You’re quite sure?” 

“‘Shard’s sake, yes.” SkekGra yanked SkekLi toward him, and the latter needed no further encouragement. He’d probably have expected himself to linger over it, maybe to be hesitant, but in the shared sense of urgency he sunk himself in to the hilt in a moment, emitting an undignified screech at the completely novel sensation of this part of SkekGra. SkekGra clung to him, making some incomprehensible mumbling and hissing sounds under his breath, digging his claws in but not enough to break skin as was his wont.

SkekLi buried his face in the crook of SkekGra’s shoulder, the words “You’re so fucking good” tumbling out in spite of himself, hoping he was equally muffled and inaudible. SkekGra might not permit such softness between them again; too much need or affection displayed here might work against SkekLi, after the Conqueror had sated this peculiar urge. One would like to think this was the first stone laid on a path, a progression toward some place where this timbre of encounter was natural and comfortable, but one was not a complete fool. 

It would have been preferable to draw it out, but the physical and emotional newness of it was tugging SkekLi to the brink too quickly for his liking. SkekGra was bucking back against him hard, was trembling like a leaf, but SkekLi didn’t get the impression he was anywhere close. Maybe he could stop for a bit, do something to help? He muttered awkwardly, “Uh–I’m…going to–” 

“It’s fine. Don’t stop.”

“Are you–I–I want you to–”

“I don’t need to. Don’t need that now. Just this.”

SkekLi have liked to see what the other looked like, below him for once, in ecstasy. Perhaps his pride was a bit wounded at the thought of being the only one to climax from this. But SkekGra’s voice was insistent, almost pleading even. This really was an attempt at erasure on his part, to make it so that his most recent memory of penetration didn’t involve the Priest. SkekLi gave in, letting his movements become reckless, gripping SkekGra’s hands in his own and pinning them on impulse, barely managing to avoid screaming as he came. He shuddered and panted, didn’t disentangle himself from SkekGra, continued to lay on him long after he was done. SkekGra let him do so, his own breath and twitching gradually stilling.

They dozed off like that, or at least SkekLi did. When he woke, it was to the feeling of his smaller body slowly sliding back onto the chaise longue as SkekGra tried to inch out from under him without disturbing him. SkekLi’s eyes almost snapped open. _You’re welcome to stay,_ he wanted to say, or, worse, _Please don’t leave._ But SkekGra was the type to avail himself of whatever he wished to have; if he’d _wanted_ to stay, he wouldn’t be shuffling about the room now, creeping back to drape a throw rug over SkekLi, and attempting to gather his clothes quietly. SkekLi pretended to be asleep. He didn’t open his eyes. Playing dead was the only way to keep himself from saying anything stupid. When the door had shut and the latch clicked softly behind SkekGra, SkekLi clung to the throw rug for lack of anything else to cling to.

How long ago had that been? Barely just half a trine, SkekLi reckoned. As he’d anticipated then, that interlude which haunted him now had changed nothing. SkekGra had acted as though it hadn’t happened, and the dark faces of the moons only knew how much of it he remembered. Now SkekGra was gone for good, and again SkekLi had not seen him leave. He remained curled up in his window seat, exhausted by the harrying events of the long day but unable to sleep. He wished it would rain again.

  


~~~

  
  
Dinner, the day after SkekLi’s and SkekNa’s return, seemed a mite less tense. It felt as though the Emperor’s mood had lifted a bit (rumors and suppositions as to why, regarding Gruenak death rattles, traveled cautiously). SkekOk dared to hope that SkekLi, sitting next to him, might not create a stir during his first time back among the full assembly. Often, the Satirist got away with creating a stir because he pretended he was being funny and he assumed a submissive and harmless air while underhandedly picking those around him apart. But there were some topics that were currently far from laughing matters. Before the typically long meal had run its course, SkekLi appeared a little fuzzy with mead, his alert posture wavering and a glint in his eye that typically meant he was about to do something inadvisable. The Scroll-keeper began to consider trying to find a way to remove him early, without drawing suspicions. But, between SkekLi’s inebriation and the palpable sense that the Emperor’s perilous tension had slackened somewhat, the Satirist thought too little on danger and did what came naturally to him, what had earned him his title, before SkekOk could act.

“Say,” SkekLi mused, raising a ladleful of landstrider menudo, “Scroll-keeper, may we speak this food’s name?”

“Beg pardon?”

“Well, if you recall, it was one of SkekGra’s favorites–”

“Here we go,” SkekLach mumbled on SkekOk’s other side, managing to seem both exhausted and excited at the potential for drama.

SkekOk, daring a quick, fretful glance toward the Emperor and the Priest at the table’s center, clapped a hand over SkekLi’s beak. “How many times must I–Satirist, we _do not_ speak the–”

SkekLi writhed free. “Ah, but where does it end, SkekOk? If we censor the name of SkekGra, where is the line drawn? Should we not eat any of SkekGra’s favorite foods, or speak their names either?”

In an uncharacteristic move, SkekOk punched him in the gut, quite forcefully really.

All the ravenous, toothy faces ranged along the table turned toward them as SkekLi gasped and sputtered. “Don’t worry, never mind, he was just choking on something. But _I_ got it out!” called SkekOk smugly, taking fictive credit where it was due.

At the table’s far end, SkekNa, who’d witnessed SkekLi’s condition enough to guess the real story, raised his drink in SkekOk’s direction in a wry toast. Then the Slave-keeper looked at the Satirist, who was still regaining his breath, and made the slightest warning slitting motion with his hook at the side of his neck.

SkekOk adjusted and re-adjusted his spectacles, trying not to appear visibly shaken by the close call. With the–the Heretic gone, SkekLi was the only other person in the Castle who really appreciated history and language and poetry the way SkekOk did. The Collector and the Ornamentalist were goods friends, but on different grounds. It would be a shame to lose the only other bookish person in the Castle, however, this occasion marked the farthest the Scroll-Keeper would be willing to stick his neck out for the Satirist. SkekOk leaned over as though to check on SkekLi’s wellbeing, and hissed reprimandingly into his earhole, in the dead language, “Never do this again. I will not help you again.”


	6. I Never Knew Daylight Could Be So Violent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SkekNa and SkekLi enjoy the great outdoors while settling back in. Meanwhile, SkekSil (that is a complete sentence).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***Chapter warnings***  
> Again, these only apply to one scene, which is the first scene if anyone would rather skip. Scene breaks indicated by “~~~”:  
> Non-consensual touching, prevented noncon and a very cavalier attitude demonstrated toward these topics by a character. And then a violent animal death because this scene had to be all the awful.

Several of the balconies about halfway up the Castle’s bristling flank contained a garden, for those who cared to experience the outdoors without going anywhere, its various segments connected by narrow walkways that wound sinuously along the building’s many edges. The balconies overflowed with ornamental trees and shrubs, thick mosses, and flowering vines. Some small animals lived there, and SkekNa suspected the Podling gardeners fed them because they were far too tame. SkekNa was sometimes tempted to flog the gardeners for it, all of them, regardless of who was actually doing the feeding; yet he always refrained in the end, since he privately enjoyed the tame critters. They were trusting, easy to catch and make some sport of when the gardeners weren’t around to see. He’d’ve _liked_ the gardeners to bear witness to his barbarism, of course, to see the shock in their eyes, but the Emperor grew angry when he caught out Skeksis not upholding their semi-civilized veneer around their subjects.

In any case, SkekNa wasn’t presently interested in troubling the critters. He and SkekUng had slept in very late and were now taking some fresh air, and the early afternoon suns felt pleasant on his face. It was the beginning of his second full day back at the Castle, and so far disaster hadn’t ensued.

“Ah!” SkekUng said loudly.

“Eh?” SkekNa watched the other make a beeline for a small, intricately carved stone bench partly hidden by shrubs with tiny white flowers. 

“Satirist!” SkekUng clapped SkekLi on the shoulder, practically knocking him off the bench.

“Gah!” SkekLi was bristling. This was possibly the only time he’d emerged from his rooms since they’d wrapped up the Gruenak business night before last, aside from last night’s dinner where SkekOk seemed to have forcibly prevented him from saying something idiotic. Clearly he’d been having some nice quiet time and was less than amused at the interruption. He smoothed his hackles down with visible effort and said dryly, “A good morning, Lord SkekUng.”

“Didn’t really get to properly welcome you back yet. I understand you and SkekNa had an adventure on the high seas.”

“That would be one way of putting it.”

SkekNa sighed in annoyance. SkekUng had taken a weird sort of shine to SkekLi after that incident in the bathhouse (a memorable incident, admittedly) and was compelled to pet him as one might a fizzgig. His reasoning was at least suitably sinister, that the Satirist was very bony and he enjoyed imagining snapping every last one of those little bones. SkekLi usually didn’t seem to mind, sometimes encouraged it, but was obviously in no mood for it now. He tensed visibly at the hand on his nape, reluctant to voice any objection due to the broad hierarchical gap.

“I also understand,” said SkekUng amiably, “that this adventure possibly happened because you made a translational error. So, one might say it’s your fault that I was without the company of my esteemed associate for, what, nearly four unum?”

SkekLi stared at the clouds. Typically he’d have had some smart comeback, but now he only said, “True.”

“How do you intend to repay me for the inconvenience you’ve caused me?” SkekUng’s hand wandered down the other’s spine. 

SkekNa shook his head. The Satirist was almost as irrepressibly horny and degenerate as SkekNa himself was, and would typically have played right into this. It was almost embarrassing watching SkekUng apparently fail to pick up on the disinterest. 

“Hey. Where’s your mind, SkekLi? I’m talking to you.” SkekUng leaned down, nosing against the side of SkekLi’s neck.

“Please don’t,” SkekLi said in a matter-of-fact but vaguely resigned tone, as though he already knew his request was futile.

“You’re not really in a position to ask anything of me, are you? Especially not after you messed that simple errand up so badly.”

“SkekUng, come off it. This is pitiful. It’s poor sport,” SkekNa found himself snapping.

“ _What._ ” SkekUng’s head shot back up as he rounded on SkekNa. “None of your business.” He seemed to forget SkekLi completely, his hand now falling instead on SkekNa’s nape, claws digging in. He half pushed, half followed SkekNa into another section of the garden, both of them sniping at each other under their breaths the whole way, and SkekUng promptly pinned the other with his back against one of the larger ornamental trees. “The fuck’s your problem? You jealous? Or is that little bastard your territory now that you spent four unum fucking him, do you think?”

“No, and no.” SkekNa shook his head to dislodge the drool that had landed on top of his beak as SkekUng raged at him. “He’s not in the mood, in case you couldn’t tell. I’m embarrassed for you.”

“I’m not _that_ dumb, SkekNa. I could _tell_. I just don’t _care_. It’s sometimes fun when they’re unhappy about it, you know that.”

“Oh, you’re not that dumb, what a relief. Look, I know you’re within your rights and all, but it should be beneath you.”

“ _He_ should’ve been beneath me, rather, but instead I’m over here arguing with you, you useless pissant. What’s gotten into you?”

SkekNa glanced around helplessly as though maybe the answer was sitting in one of the trees. “I just… He’ll be back to normal in time. He’s not himself right now, I already told you that. You know, his preference for the–the Heretic.”

“Oh, so he’s sad. He could probably use a distraction then.”

“If he wanted a distraction, he’d have hunted us down already. Listen, just–when Chamberlain told us not to speak that name, for a second it wasn’t clear who he meant. I thought it could be you. It gave me a turn.”   
  
SkekUng’s glare relented for a moment as he considered that. His hand went to the side of SkekNa’s face, gently. Then he scowled again. “So you have pity in your heart, eh?”

SkekNa snarled. “No, of course not. I just don’t want to be a hypocrite. I would want to be left alone, if it was you who was gone.”   
  
  
“I dunno, sounds like pity.”

“I’ll show you my fucking pity, SkekUng.” SkekNa looked up into the branches above him and spied, as he’d hoped, a fuzzy little climber hopping around there. He made a soft noise, holding out his closed right hand as though it contained a treat. The climber scurried down the tree’s trunk, extending its tiny twitching nose toward the hand, and the hook impaled it in short order. SkekNa held it up between himself and SkekUng. “Brunch?” He seized a tiny hindlimb in his teeth, shaking his head viciously to worry it loose as the animal flailed and squeaked. He tilted his head back and swallowed the morsel without chewing. It wasn’t the most enjoyable way to eat and it would mean hacking up some bone and fur pellets later, but a point needed to be made.

SkekUng watched with dilated pupils as SkekNa took off the thing’s bottlebrush of a tail next, and then he joined in, taking a forelimb. The animal was not terribly recognizable by the time it went still. SkekUng leaned in and began licking the gore and blood from SkekNa’s beak, both of them heedless of the dead thing between them getting a mess on their robes. 

“You going to apologize for insulting me now?” SkekNa said softly, licking back.

“No. You going to apologize for interfering with my business?”

“No.”

~~~

In the late afternoon, SkekLi took one of the phegnese out onto the plains, which was considered somewhat old-fashioned these days since the carriages were more comfortable. He wanted the suns and the breeze, and he had many fond memories of phegnese excursions. Anyway, he didn’t have his own carriage, he wasn’t important enough. 

He’d taken counsel with himself long into the night, long enough to stop being drunk and start being hungover, slept late. He knew he would need to figure out how to resume his life, to resume some sense of normalcy even though a major figure in his life was now lacking. The idea of getting used to not having SkekGra around was nauseating, but really, he’d been planning to ignore SkekGra anyway, for his own sanity. He would need to pick himself up and continue his own pursuits. It also occurred to him while he let the phegnese wander directionlessly through the grass that his situation in court would be precarious now. His association with the Conqueror had probably protected him to some extent, a thing he hadn’t really considered until now. SkekUng possibly would not have pulled the sort of thing he’d pulled in the garden earlier that day, if SkekGra had still been around.

It had been a shock to be rescued from that pending unpleasantness by SkekNa, but SkekLi didn’t reckon he could count on SkekNa for anything much. The Slave-keeper had obviously been a bit shaken even at the thought of being in SkekLi’s bereft position, and his sympathy was bound to last only as long as his unease did.

Now that SkekLi had managed to shift his mind slightly from the jagged hole under his ribs, to realize that he would need to ready himself to play all the stupid Skeksis court games in the wake of his close associate’s disgrace, it occurred to him that his best bet would be to ingratiate himself with SkekUng. If that were the case, he was off to a poor start. He really couldn’t bear the thought of anyone touching him now, and hoped that SkekNa’s sympathy might extend so far as to keep SkekUng literally and figuratively off his back for a week or so. But after he had some time to let the worst of his shock pass through his system, SkekLi would need to…to apologize to SkekUng. He was more than capable of doing that creatively, and maybe by then he wouldn’t mind doing it. 

The Satirist was jolted from his thoughts when he suddenly tumbled off the phegnese. Having received no guidance and been left to ramble, the animal had evidently forgotten it had a passenger and had leaned down to peck up some crawlie or seed from the ground. SkekLi landed with a grunt at its feet.

He was fortunate in his current phegnese, a bird that was too small for many of the others to ride. Some twenty trine ago, SkekUng had been about to twist the head off of the newly hatched runt when SkekLi, who’d happened to be in the stables, had made a dramatic case for its life and promised that yes he would train it and make use of it himself since it was no good for anyone else. The bird was accustomed to him and didn’t startle when he fell on its foot. Quite a few of them were skittish and would have trampled him. This one actually nudged him with its beak as though concerned about him.

The apparent kindness (though it was equally likely to be simple curiosity) was enough to make SkekLi, whose state was precarious, burst out sobbing. The phegnese took a couple steps back, eyeing him a little warily. He picked himself up and crept over to it and put his arms around its neck, leaned his face into it and dampened its feathers. It shuffled in place, seeming confused or annoyed, but permitted the strange behavior.

“I appreciate you,” SkekLi informed the bird after the fit had passed. He stepped away from it. It waited for him to climb back on, then cocked its head as though shrugging when he failed to do so, and it started wandering through the grass, foraging for snacks. SkekLi wandered within a few yards of it, also snacking on the occasional bug. He hadn’t had any appetite for the past two days, and had taken his supper last night mostly in mead, but he was feeling somewhat faint from the privation. A bit of protein wasn’t a bad idea, and he couldn’t manage anything bigger than bugs at present anyway. The suns dipped low and cast multi-hued light and shadow over the plains. He didn’t call the phegnese to him and turn back toward the Castle until it was dark.

  


~~~

SkekSil had spent two days debating with himself when and how to inform the Emperor of SkekLi’s repeated gaffe. He’d skulked back to the bathhouse door on the first evening, when he could be almost certain that no one would catch him listening since every creature in the Castle was lying low. The Satirist’s voice had uttered that forbidden name, quite a few times, plaintive and defiant, almost hysterical. SkekNa’s words couldn’t be picked out, but he’d seemed to be trying to discourage these utterances. The second evening, SkekSil hadn’t had any trouble guessing what the minor flurry was between SkekOk and SkekLi at dinner.

There wasn’t necessarily a reason to snitch on SkekLi. Yes, of course there was the Emperor’s edict that the name of SkekGra or even the title of Conqueror not be uttered, and on that count it would be pragmatic to toss the Satirist under the carriage immediately. But, aside from the threat of punishment if anyone found out that the Chamberlain had known of these trespasses and said nothing, there wasn’t a compelling reason that SkekSil could detect for bringing this to SkekSo’s attention at once. SkekSil enjoyed instigating, to be sure, but only when it benefited him. _Would_ it benefit him now to disclose this information? SkekLi was too useless to be high on the Chamberlain’s grudge roll, and the Emperor’s mood was so volatile of late that SkekSil was leery of being struck merely for being the deliverer of such intelligence.

He couldn’t help but feel that the timing might be better, not just owing to SkekSo’s volatility, but because SkekSo might be more likely to appreciate his loyal Chamberlain’s efforts if his mood were improved. Moreover, SkekSo had summoned SkekZok to the throne room and closed the doors very late on the first evening, and ever since then there had been little sign of the two except at the second evening’s meal. They must be plotting–that is to say, discussing deep matters of the utmost import to the social and spiritual wellbeing of Skeksis. The Chamberlain would never have the audacity to interrupt such important proceedings for a non-time-sensitive matter, of course.

He was still deliberating as they cleared out at dinner on the third evening–SkekLi was absent, not a wise move on his part, discourteous to miss dinner on only his second full day back in the Castle!–when SkekZok approached him, leaning down with a quiet, “Chamberlain, our Emperor would like a word with you in the throne room.”

“Hmmh, Chamberlain is eager to know Emperor’s thoughts,” SkekSil said agreeably, following the Priest. SkekSo had departed a minute in advance of them and was already seated on his throne, looking as though he’d been there for hours, when the other two arrived. Happily, the lighting had finally been restored. Bad for Skeksis morale, that had been, Emperor lurking in the barely-lit throne room like an overgrown hollerbat in a cave. SkekSil gave a possibly inaudible hum of approval.

SkekZok strode over to stand at the right side of the throne, and SkekSil went to stand before them both, trying not to let any of his unease slip. He’d not been expecting to face both of them. Was this an interrogation?

The Chamberlain bowed humbly. “Wise sire, am glad to see that throne room is bright and beautiful once more. Is–”

“Yes, it’s lovely,” the Emperor rasped impatiently. “I have an important question, SkekSil, on which I would very much like your opinion.”

“Of course, Emperor, I am always happy to–”

“I know you’re always delighted to air your opinions.” There was something perilous in SkekSo’s tone, and SkekSil snapped his beak shut and nodded, waiting.

SkekSo exchanged an unreadable glance with SkekZok and then turned back to the Chamberlain. “You enjoy keeping your greasy eyes and ears on everything in this Castle.” _Greasy_ eyes and–! Stupid Emperor. “Tell me, SkekSil, whom would you deem to have recently…misbehaved?”

“Ah-” SkekSil began, managing not to turn it into his habitual noise. The other Skeksis despised his noises, which amused him. It was good to have a hallmark, a thing that made his presence impossible to ignore, but not so good to overdo it when the Emperor was in a serious mood. The Chamberlain’s immediate reaction was delight at the possibility of influencing a decision on whoever was about to feel the imperial vexation; this was just as rapidly replaced by wariness. He _could_ use this as a chance to nudge SkekSo toward someone SkekSil himself was currently most annoyed with (he curated a frequently-updated list in his mind), but this _could_ also be a trap. Could be a test of his loyalty, his sincerity. Given the current situation, what he’d overhead SkekLi say would certainly be the most heinous sin in the Emperor’s estimation. What if SkekSo already knew about that? If SkekSil gave any other answer, and if SkekSo knew that _he_ knew about that, the gaze of wrath might turn upon him instead.  


But! What if the Emperor _didn’t_ know about that? If SkekSil told him, he might be angry that he’d failed to tell immediately.

SkekSil canted his head right and left, considered his options for perhaps a beat too long while both sets of pale eyes trained themselves unblinkingly on him. “Am glad you asked, sire,” he said at last. “I have heard some–some things, disturbing things, that go against Emperor’s prudent directives. Did want to tell you, when I heard these things, of course, but sire and imperial Priest seemed very busy. Did not want to trouble. If I was in error, I–”

“I’d advise you spit it out now, lest your _error_ magnify itself,” SkekSo cut in.

“Of course. Forgive! Emperor, two nights ago, upon return of SkekNa and SkekLi, I set up the baths for them and heard them talking there. Satirist spoke the name you have stricken from all speech, several times.”

SkekSo’s face remained unchanged, but his grip on his sceptre tightened visibly. SkekSil added generously, but also sternly, “SkekLi was tired. May have taken drink with his meal. But it does not excuse him, certainly, I told them both right away of your will regarding Heretic.”

“Mmh,” the Emperor commented indifferently. “And SkekLi was speaking with SkekNa?”

“Yes. Slave-keeper did not speak against Emperor’s will, as Satirist did.”

“But SkekNa didn’t tell us of it either.” SkekSo and SkekZok exchanged another look. The former still kept impassive, but the latter was clearly enjoying himself, his leering smirk playing at the corners of his mouth and threatening to overtake his face. 

SkekSil weighed whether SkekNa should be tossed under the carriage along with SkekLi. It would probably be best _not_ to suggest that SkekNa be faulted for his failure to report the seditious words, since that would imply that SkekSil be faulted for the same. The Chamberlain lowered his head a bit in agreement with the statement and said nothing.

“SkekNa has…posed problems in the past,” SkekZok said mildly.

“Yes, more with his hands than with his speech.” SkekSo turned back to SkekSil. “Did you hear any other interesting things from SkekLi, Chamberlain?”

“Well…Could not hear into Library, but Scroll-keeper talked with Satirist long time after SkekNa left.”

“I see. Anything else?”

“Chamberlain can’t be certain about fuss at dinner last night. Was not sitting terribly close, and Skeksis very loud when eating, hmmmh? But, I think Scroll-keeper was not actually preventing Satirist from choking on food.”

“That’s as I thought,” SkekSo nodded. “Well. Thank you, SkekSil, this has given us something to mull over.”

It seemed he’d been abruptly dismissed. SkekSil paused, wondering how many necks the foot would come down on, whether his would be one of them for withholding the information as long as he had. He _had_ done his best to make it plain he’d _intended_ to inform SkekSo of the Satirist’s violation of his edict, hadn’t he? 

The Emperor looked annoyed at his hesitation, apparently sensing its cause, and snapped, “Yes, I heard your excuses. You should have told me sooner, regardless. Since you did tell me though, rather than use this opportunity to advance your petty personal agendas, you’re forgiven. This time. I hope I needn’t remind you that there are other eyes and ears in the Castle than yours, and if _anything_ comes to your attention that I ought to know about, you’d do well to tell me immediately, before someone else does. That is your job. Wouldn’t want to be found shirking your duty, would you?”

“Ah, no, of course not, sire. I was in error. Thank you for understanding. Leave you to wise counsels now.” SkekSil bowed and cringed backward until he was fully halfway across the broad space, before ducking his head and turning toward the door in relief. Things might have gone ill for him here, had the Emperor and the Priest not had SkekLi, SkekNa, and SkekOk to deliberate over.

“Oh, and SkekSil–make sure the door shuts and locks behind you.”

SkekSil was only too glad to oblige.


	7. Interrogatory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everyone is in trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just canon-typical violence in this one for once.

SkekLi came partially awake from some dream of behemoth birds high in the mountains, disoriented, not sure what was waking him, nor indeed whether he were awake or asleep. What sound was that, in his room? Was there a sound? Had it sounded again, or was that the birds tolling upon the dawn? Or was that the birds plummeting, the thump of their giant bodies crashing, pierced by some equally imposing bolt shot from the cliffs below?

“SkekLi.” That was definitely not a bird. Some voice was above him. For a moment the near-forgotten dream lingered and he wasn’t sure whether he was a dying bird and the voice was that of whomever had shot him from the sky, or whether the voice came from above his bed.

“ _SkekLi._ Arise.”

Definitely above his bed. The Satirist shook off the dream, grappled toward the waking world. Who was in his room, no one had been here when he went to sleep, no one could be here unless the Emperor had given them the master key. “Beg pardon? Sorry, I was just sleeping, a moment,” he mumbled automatically, his hands twitching to life, still disoriented yet all too aware of what was happening. 

If someone had been let into his rooms in the middle of the night, he was in the exact sort of trouble SkekNa and SkekOk had both warned him about. SkekLi had never been in real trouble. Small trouble, constantly. He had a high tolerance for pain, and minor punishments hadn’t deterred him from his traditional antics. But this was something else, something he had yet to understand. They _had_ both warned him. The Chamberlain _had_ made it abundantly clear. And SkekLi had gone and done it anyway. He’d been so bogged down in his grief and resentment that he hadn’t really considered what would happen if they found him out–

“Wake up. Look at me.” 

SkekLi turned his head toward the voice, squinting even in the dim light of the lantern held by the Priest. “I–see you,” he volunteered helplessly. 

“Good. Do not go back to sleep. Make yourself presentable. The Emperor would speak with you. I’ll be waiting outside. I expect I won’t need to encroach upon your space again. My knocking wasn’t enough to wake you.” The Priest looked more ghastly than usual with the bleak shadows thrown up into all the exceptionally deep crags and sunken regions of his countenance. 

“I–I–My apologies, I’ll be right there.”

Fucking SkekZok. Of course. SkekLi sat up dutifully, but waited until he’d heard SkekZok move back out through his sitting room and close the door to his quarters behind him before rising. The Satirist tottered like a drunkard, although he was and had gone to sleep quite sober. The Priest would be waiting in the hall outside his door. They would get someone else to extract him if he didn’t go along voluntarily. He stumbled in the dark into his washroom, pulling a cord near the doorway to activate the ambient lamp that glowed from some technology or magic he didn’t understand around the edges of the ceiling, wincing at the sudden light. He tried not to let the shock and confusion overbear him as he quickly scrubbed himself down with a wet cloth and toweled himself off. 

He ought to have thought more about this. He’d been preoccupied with his own unhappiness, and with considerations of how he’d manage in court now that his influential ally was gone, and he’d only passingly contemplated how he would handle being confronted with his forbidden utterance of SkekGra’s name. He must not really have thought anything would come of it? He must have been rash, in extremis. He was too accustomed to being an inconsequential piece on the gameboard, never more than a minor (if frequent) offender, too accustomed to the Conqueror’s influence shielding him from potentially more severe consequences.

SkekLi grabbed the most unembellished robe he had, cinched a belt over it, didn’t bother adding any of the increasingly decadent outer layers or accessories the Skeksis had gradually adopted. He may as well approach this as humbly as possible. It would be best to be humble, to grovel in fact, even if he weren’t repentant. 

He ran his claws through the feathers that were trying not to bristle at his ruff. Though he’d not given this eventuality nearly enough thought, he’d vaguely considered it enough to know now, when push came to shove, to what extent he was willing to stand by or distance himself from his words. He gave himself a long stare in the glass, surprised at how drawn the typically expressive countenance there was, took quite a few slow deep breaths, and went out to where SkekZok waited in the corridor.

~~~  


SkekZok took SkekLi to the small receiving room SkekSo kept off the anteroom to his chambers. It was a good place to discomfit anyone, a throne room writ very small, long and narrow, almost claustrophobic, with only a chair for the Emperor. The Priest again took a standing spot at SkekSo’s right hand, watching the Satirist cast a quick glance around. 

SkekLi abased himself in an exasperatingly graceful motion, on one knee but with his hands on the floor before him and his beak nearly touching the floor. This didn’t have the dramatic effect it might have, had a prouder person done it; SkekLi had no shame, habitually, and action was performative, not an impulsive act of fear. It somehow seemed almost as insulting as it was ingratiating.

SkekSo considered, canting his head to the left. He let the silence stretch long enough for the situation to grow tangibly uncomfortable, but the Skeksis on the floor seemed to wait patiently. The Emperor finally said, politely, “SkekLi, tell me, why do you think you’re here?”

“I presume it’s because I spoke a thing that has been forbidden by my Emperor.”

SkekSo glanced to SkekZok, his beak half open in amusement or vexation (it was difficult even for SkekZok to tell, sometimes). The Emperor turned his gaze back to the Satirist. “Astute. You were already on shaky ground before you even returned to this Castle, given the mistake you made on your errand with SkekNa. What would compel you to speak such a thing, having been told–very clearly, as I understand it–-that it was not to be done?”

“I was shocked, my lord. I was confused. I was given this information, that we mustn’t speak such a name anymore, but no reason–”

“There needs be no reason,” SkekSo snarled, his sceptre clanging on the arm of his chair for emphasis. He calmed immediately. “It is enough that I decreed it to be so. Do you disagree?”

SkekZok was pleased to see SkekLi falter. Despite the Satirist’s initial petrified grogginess, he’d pulled himself together rather quickly, and he had been too composed thus far for SkekZok’s liking. Now he sputtered a bit. “I–This wasn’t my implication. It was very disorienting, was my meaning. I’ll–grant I was upset. I hadn’t been told at that point what had become of–of…someone I had passed much time with.”

Passed much time with SkekGra, indeed, most of it on his back from what rumor and distinctive bite marks suggested. SkekZok tried not to smirk. It would be unbecoming of a priest–correction, unbecoming of the Ritual-Master–to take open delight in the Satirist’s pain at the loss of that and whatever other connections he’d had with the Heretic. 

“Ahh, I see,” murmured SkekSo with mock sympathy. “You were worried about the fate of your former colleague and your mind was addled.”

SkekLi hesitated, evidently uncertain whether to agree with such a patently true yet bitingly sarcastic remark. “That–was the case, sire.”

“Hmm. And SkekNa, he’d received the same order as you had regarding the _Heretic_. Did he speak that cursed name?”

Another hesitation. SkekZok waited with interest. Many Skeksis might attempt here to deflect whatever blame they could onto another. Instead, the Satirist, when he did speak, sounded almost defensive. “Not at all. He advised me not to do so either.”

SkekSo nodded sidelong at the Ritual-Master, who took over for the time being: “And SkekNa did not inform the Emperor of your words. You seem to be defending someone who was in fact complicit in your blasphemy.”

SkekLi’s hands tensed a bit on the floor before him, the tendons standing out sharply. “SkekNa was as road-weary as I was, Lord SkekZok. I think he….wished to correct me and lay the matter to rest, rather than stir up more unease in the court over something I said when–when I was, frankly, beside myself.”

_Beside himself_ , how dramatic. Had the former Conqueror really meant that much to SkekLi? And now he was trying to keep trouble off of SkekNa? Did the Satirist have some particular penchant for the bloody and violent among the Skeksis? The tip of SkekZok’s tail twitched with intrigue as he took a brief mental detour to voyeuristically envision whatever it was SkekLi got out of his interactions with these people. He refocused himself quickly and resumed, “SkekNa wasn’t in a position to make that call. He should have told the Emperor what you said, rather than keeping mum and encouraging you to conceal your wrong-minded thoughts. Skeksis are all bound to each other, by virtue of being both alone and elevated in this piteous world. When we fail each other, we fail ourselves.”

This articulated with the new tenets the Ritual-Master and the Emperor had laid out together over the past two days. SkekLi appeared taken aback by the last phrase, enough so that his head raised and he blinked at SkekZok questioningly.

SkekZok elaborated, “SkekNa was fostering corruption in his own spirit by failing to see to it that the corruption in yours was quickly exposed and remedied, don’t you see that?”

The Satirist looked downright insulted now. His tail lashed once and he quickly stilled it, then stilled his face, falling back into a neutral expression and lowering his head again. “My lord, it’s not my place to judge SkekNa or anyone else. That can only be done by our Emperor.”

_Damn it._ That line of questioning ought to have sent SkekLi deeper into the panicked mire of trying to discern whether he were best to join his superior in condemning the Slave-keeper or to continue to take the high road and decline to implicate SkekNa. It would look ridiculous now to push the subject and attempt to torment the Satirist with uncertainty, since that would effectively be arguing with SkekLi’s apt assertion that the Emperor was the final arbiter. SkekZok glanced back at SkekSo, who gave a slight shrug of one shoulder.

“SkekNa will be judged in his own time,” the Emperor resumed. He narrowed his eyes and grinned slightly, knowing the next subject would be even thornier. “The Scroll-keeper, as our official historian, told both of you what had occurred. SkekNa left the Library before you did. What else did you and SkekOk discuss, Satirist?”

SkekLi paused again, his slight frame tensing visibly. SkekZok could imagine what was going through his mind: Had SkekOk already been questioned, or had that yet to occur? What could be said that was least likely to conflict with anything the Scroll-keeper might say? At last the Satirist answered, “I was distressed at the news. SkekOk was attempting to calm me. He also advised me similarly as SkekNa had.”

“Such a kind friend, eh?” SkekSo sounded mildly menacing.

“I have great regard for the Scroll-keeper. We’ve long had a conducive working relationship.”

“Ah, yes, I remember when that all started. The Heretic recruited both of you for a–diplomatic envoy,” mused SkekSo. “One can imagine that SkekOk, of all people, would be sympathetic to your unfortunate loss.”

SkekLi said nothing, clearly sensing the trap about to spring.

“So sympathetic, in fact, that he might, oh, I don’t know, punch you to stop you uttering that name yet again at the dinner table?”

The Satirist winced, cringing a bit lower. This time the movement was visceral, not performative. SkekZok tried again not to grin.

“How do you explain that one, SkekLi?” the Emperor went on, taking it as an admission. “You knew full well what had become of the Heretic and why, by that time. SkekOk explained it to you at length, and had already advised you not to flap your beak in such a way, according to your own account.”

SkekLi braced himself, coming back up out of his cringe, and looked up again. “The Emperor is correct. I knew better. I was quite drunk, but I knew better. I was drunk and angry.”

“Ahh. Angry at whom?”

The Satirist had regained some of his weird composure, and he stared SkekSo straight in the eye. “At you, my lord.”

SkekZok couldn’t help raising his brows. Skeksis didn’t just pop out and say such things matter-of-factly, they either beat around the bush or went on tirades. The Ritual-Master half expected SkekSo to leap from his throne and set upon SkekLi with his sceptre or his fangs. 

Instead, the Emperor gave that half-open-mouthed look again. “That’s quite the bold bit of candor. You’ve always been insolent, particularly for someone who weighs about as much as a wet fizzgig. I could tear your jaw clean off, yet here you are, spouting off like you own this Castle.”

“Shall I lie to my Emperor?”

“Hmm.” The two continued staring each other down, much to SkekZok’s fascination. “No, you should tell your Emperor the truth. But you are rude, you are unapologetic.”

“Do you wish me to apologize for being angry, or for saying that I was?”

SkekSo hissed quietly. “You have no right to be angry with my decisions and my directives. I lead this Empire, as I have since the beginning. My will, the preservation and betterment of our race–these are one and the same.”

SkekLi knew when to back down. He lowered his head again. “I don’t dispute any of what you say, my lord. Regardless, I was angry, and I acted in anger.”

SkekSo considered for a moment. “No one can prevent you from having a feeling. You could have kept quiet about it. The issue, as you seem to admit, is that you acted on that feeling, in direct and fully informed defiance of my will.” As though to make clear that he was the only one permitted to act on his anger, he rose and stood over the Satirist, placing the butt end of his sceptre against the other’s prone hand, and bore down hard, trapping and jabbing the hand beneath the somewhat blunt prongs at the end. It was a small thing, a simple pain in the broader and intricate picture of all the possible pains, but it wasn’t insignificant. It would hurt more the longer it went on. SkekLi’s brow furrowed, his free hand tensing and then flattening itself out along the floor again, attempting not to offer any resistance. SkekZok watched with delight, his tailtip twitching again.

The Emperor glanced over at him pointedly. The Ritual-Master composed himself quickly, stepping forward to SkekLi’s other side. “If SkekNa was complicit in keeping his silence when you could arguably be said to be speaking from a place of instability and ignorance,” SkekZok resumed, “then how much more so SkekOk, when you repeated your transgression in full knowledge of what you were doing? He not only kept his silence, he actively stopped you.”

The aim was partly to assess how grave the Scroll-keeper’s own sins were. Mostly, the aim was to bewilder and unsettle SkekLi, to give him a chance to displace some of the consequences for his own behavior onto another, a chance to fall in line with the nascent philosophies being propounded here. But, for all SkekLi knew, it was a trap and he might get in more trouble if he agreed with this impugning assessment of SkekOk. Really, there was no telling which option would be the worse for the Satirist. That depended on the Emperor’s whim.

“I don’t think it’s my place to assess the actions of my fellows,” SkekLi said in a pained tone, after hesitating a long time. “Scroll-keeper will likely tell you he made a mistake. I don’t believe it’s an error he intended to make again.”   
  
“But he was in error?”

“He–By the law, yes. He didn’t intend any harm.”

SkekSo stepped in again, pushing down more on the sceptre and wrenching a sharp intake of breath from the Satirist. “Do you think that by appearing noble you can escape what you’ve done?”

“No. Whatever I say about SkekOk doesn’t change what _I_ did, does it, my lord?”

“Hmm, very good.” SkekSo seemed to be growing bored or impatient. SkekZok would have preferred to continue drawing out suffering along this vein, maybe even to imply that SkekOk would be punished in SkekLi’s place just to see how such an unusually sentimental Skeksis would react to that. Ah well. That wasn’t really the point, much as he would enjoy such a pursuit. The interrogation itself wasn’t exactly supposed to be punitive. That would be…pre-emptive. 

“SkekZok,” the Emperor prompted. .

Ah, yes. “Satirist, do you recant the words you spoke in willful defiance of our Emperor’s directives?”

The Satirist’s trapped hand had acquired a bluish tinge at the ends of the fore– and middle fingers, circulation impeded by the end of the sceptre still bearing down viciously, and his other hand quivered; likely, he was struggling to keep from attempting to yank the offending object away. “I won’t speak it hereafter. But–” He drew a deep breath. “–what’s already spoke, I don’t recant.”

SkekSo jabbed down harder. SkekLi yelped, his free hand flying to grasp the scepter, barely snatching itself back in time to avoid making that particular mistake and returning itself to the floor in a clawed position. 

The Satirist probably had no idea, not having witnessed the incident, of the fleeting semblance he bore to the banished SkekGra, who had also flatly refused to recant. Subversive bastards, the both of them. No wonder SkekLi doted on the Heretic. “That’s your right,” SkekZok said after a lengthy pause. “We wouldn’t compel you to do so. That’s something that must come from within your own spirit. If your spirit is contaminated by your own sins, no one else can change that. It will worsen your case, though.”

“Then, my lords, my case is worsened,” SkekLi rasped out, the tremor in his hand now running all along his limbs, eyes screwed shut with the effort of not pitching a fight against the sceptre. 

“As you like.” SkekSo gave a final jab before removing the sceptre abruptly, causing SkekLi to snarl in pain as the compressed nerves and blood vessels were jolted awake. 

They waited to see if he would beg or argue. He lowered his head to the floor, perhaps a silent plea, perhaps an attempt to escape the situation as best he could, but said nothing. The scepter’s prongs had left deep impressions in the unbroken, bruised skin of his hand.

“On your feet. You’ll have new accommodations until such time as we’ve properly addressed your trespasses,” SkekSo said briskly, with his signature decisive clang of the sceptre on the floor, right beside the crumpled Satirist’s head.  


~~~

  


SkekLi walked unsteadily. He wanted to cradle his injured hand in the other one, but doubted the wisdom of that. It was best to submit to these cruelties without a whiff of resistance. He could submit a great deal. He could not and would not repent.

He wasn’t moving fast enough for SkekSo’s liking. The Emperor grabbed him by the upper arm and half dragged him along. There was no point in trying to flee. SkekLi could put up more of a fight than one might think, being underhanded and quick where he lacked in strength or skill, but there was no way he could escape these two. SkekSo was skinny, but with some uncanny strength in his stringy muscles and a viciousness that surpassed his strength. 

Anyway, what would he do, even were he to successfully flee? He would never be welcome among the others again, would be punished even worse if he tried to return. On the road with SkekNa, the Slave-keeper had been drunk and oddly reminiscent one evening, and had rambled on in a sated way, still sprawled on top of SkekLi, about how he’d intended to run from the Castle, from his punishment, and how stupid that would have been.

They proceeded down to the cages outside the laboratory. SkekLi almost snickered in nervous, contemptuous amusement. How predictable. Skeksis tended to end up by the cages when they presented a flight risk or needed to be physically constrained as SkekNa had been during the gradual removal of his forearm, always chained to the bars but kept outside the cage on the ridiculous logic that one must not and technically had not caged a Skeksis. This time, the cages were all occupied by medium-to-large animals. SkekSo scanned them and pointed at one with some nebrie inside. Nebrie were fairly harmless, and had no protruding limbs or mouthparts that could pass through the bars. 

SkekSo did the chaining himself, a complex matter, leaving him tethered to the cage with enough slack to sit, stand, or lie down easily, but paying particular attention to his forearms. He couldn’t raise his hands much above his waist when it was done, and could only move them a few inches away from each other. Lovely. What if he had an itch on his beak? Strange that that should be the first thought to register as particularly horrifying, amid the knowledge that much worse than being unable to reach an itch was sure to come. 

It made more sense when the Emperor fastened a few adjustable leather straps around his beak, preventing him from opening it. He’d not be able to remove them himself, with his hands restrained this way. 

“There.” SkekSo stepped back and surveyed his handiwork vindictively. “Since you haven’t been able to control the flapping of your beak, you won’t be permitted to open it. Consider it a courtesy. You won’t be able to dig yourself a deeper hole before we decide what to do with you.”

SkekLi’s stomach lurched at the last part. He lowered his head, in acknowledgment of the statement or in obeisance or simply to wait them out until decided to leave him alone. They stuck around a few more minutes, muttering in undertones to each other as if to deliberately make him uncomfortable. The leer could be heard even in the tone of SkekZok’s lowered voice. Finally they departed, extinguishing all lights behind him, leaving him in the dark until such time as the Scientist should arrive at the lab in the morning. 

SkekLi swallowed down the desperate fear and uncertainly as it tried to choke him. The worst part was that they’d muzzled him. Never mind whether they intended to starve him or at least remove it to let him eat, the real problem was he couldn’t sing to himself or talk to the nebrie as he would otherwise have begun doing promptly. That would have helped him keep himself together. He waited for a long time, until he was fairly sure SkekZok wouldn’t still be lurking around somewhere in hopes of hearing him panic, before unleashing the dread and resentment in a series of muffled screams that left his throat raw. 

~~~

  
  
Rumors were already peeping along the corridors by the time SkekNa woke. The Satirist had been seen chained at the cages, muzzled in fact. “Ah, fuck,” muttered SkekNa, wondering what this would mean for him. After seeing SkekOk’s perilous bid to keep SkekLi quiet, it had occurred to SkekNa that he might also be in peril simply because he hadn’t tattled on SkekLi.

It hadn’t crossed his mind, at the time it happened, that he would be expected– _obligated_ –to tattle, given the seriousness of the offense. He enjoyed seeing his fellow Skeksis suffer, but it wasn’t his way to try and bring trouble underhandedly down on anyone’s head. There were enough others to do that, and enough others to gets themselves in trouble without anyone’s help. SkekNa didn’t have the time or inclination for stupid games. 

“You keep really quiet today, very polite, right?” SkekUng said warningly.

“When am I ever not polite, you overbearing fuckstain?”

“I ought to rip your whole spine out, you useless shit-for-brains. Better than what they’ll do to you.”

“Kidding, kidding. I’ll keep my head down.”

Everyone had nearly gotten through that evening’s dinner without incident when the Emperor rose suddenly from his chair. He didn’t sweep out in a huff like he sometimes did, but remained standing there quietly. Those in close proximity began to look uncomfortable and slowly stopped talking. The hush ran along the two prongs of the long table until one could have heard a fishbone drop. 

“I am not to be dallied with,” SkekSo began, not condescending to look at any of them, speaking out into the empty dining hall as though an audience stood there. “I am not to be defied, dodged, or denied. My will is final. If I tell you that I am holding up two fingers”–here he gestured with his index finger, just the one, pointing out into the invisible crowd–”then I am holding up two fingers. If I tell you that a word is not to be spoken, that word does not exist.”

The silence settled back in as Skeksis blinked and glanced at each other uneasily.

“Do you understand?!” the Emperor roared, flecks of spittle flying, suddenly casting his gaze left and right, along both sides of the table, with quick motions of his neck like a wading bird hunting.

Skeksis shrank away and nodded anxiously, and agreed in a flurry of murmurs. 

SkekSo resumed his prior composure, now glancing at them sidelong with hooded, dangerous eyes as he continued. “You’re probably aware by now of where the Satirist is presently reposing. He spoke that which is forbidden, more than once. He admitted it himself. He’ll be chastised for it, after he’s had a few days to think about whether it was worth it to him.”

A few of them murmured in anticipation of the spectacle.

SkekSo paused for several moments, again looking out into the empty room, and the assembly was almost starting to think he was finished when he barked, “SkekNa. SkekOk. Come here, around in front.”

SkekNa’s limbs went cold. He glanced down the table, saw SkekUng in partial profile trying not to look too obviously in his direction, and SkekOk at the other end looking like he was about to violently return everything he’d just eaten. May as well get this over with, and clearly SkekOk wasn’t about to be the first to move. SkekNa walked around the edge of the table, to the front, and stood across from the Emperor with his head lowered. SkekOk reluctantly joined him a few moments later. 

“You’ve all indicated that you understand what I’ve just told you,” SkekSo said, smoothly now, almost pleasantly, “however, at least two among your number are either too stupid or too–foolishly sentimental to follow the logical progression of my recent directive regarding the Heretic. Tell us, SkekNa, if some Skeksis speaks a name or title that has been stricken from existence by the Emperor’s order, how does one respond to that?”

How humiliating, to be called out in public and spoken to like a childling. SkekNa would rather have been interrogated in private, even if it meant with fewer mild words and more pain. He grappled with anger and dread for a long moment–much too long–before saying inadequately, “One tells the Emperor about it. Maybe, as your highness mentioned, one didn’t follow the logical progression to its end because one was road-worn and full of ale, and one failed to do this.”

“Ah.” SkekZok, smug and loathsome as always, at the Emperor’s side, seemed inexplicably pleased. “Whom did you fail, SkekNa?”

SkekNa imagined striking the fucker again, clawing his creepy eyes out, but he’d already lost a limb over the Priest. (But it _had_ been satisfying to hit him, even the memory of it after three hundred trine was comforting, even knowing what it had led to.) He turned away from SkekZok and back toward SkekSo, bowing as humbly as he could. “Our Emperor.”

The Priest positively beamed with slimy delight. “Indeed. Good. You aren’t beyond remediation. You also failed yourself, and SkekLi, and all of us, by neglecting to treat SkekLi’s blaspheming with the seriousness it deserved, neglecting to let our Emperor know that he was in need of correction.”

SkekNa tried to keep his face expressionless. Not beyond remediation? Was this a good thing?

The Emperor now turned his gaze on the Scroll-keeper. “I hope you were listening to all of that closely, SkekOk. It bears on you even more.”

SkekOk trembled and retreated into his collar, talons gripping the table’s edge to steady himself. “I–yes, sire, I see that I also failed. Mine was doubtless the foolish sentimentality you mentioned. Folk such as myself, who deal more in abstract concepts, are sometimes given to that, I fear. I heard the Satirist speak that which isn’t to be spoken, and I failed. I was thinking of the long history we have as colleagues, and I found the situation piteous, and all the weakness I harbor was stirred. Forgive, please.”

SkekSo yawned widely. “Ahh, if only it were that simple, Scroll-keeper. You did more than keep silent about SkekLi’s misstep. You _actively_ silenced _him._ Others saw it happen. SkekLi admitted it happened. He was running his mouth inappropriately at this very table two nights ago, and you punched him right in the gut to stop him, did you not?”

The table briefly erupted in surprise and merriment at the idea of SkekOk actually punching someone. “HmmMMhh,” SkekSil’s obnoxious whimper sounded in the chaos. 

“Be silent, imbeciles,” SkekSo hollered, and quiet returned at once. The Emperor turned back to SkekOk and SkekNa. “Of the two of you, I’m surprised which one needs to answer for punching someone into compliance, but these times have been–interesting, all around.”

SkekOk was mumbling fretfully and wringing one hand against the other one that still clung to the table for balance. A small part of SkekNa, to his mild disgust, wanted to do something to help the coward, but the greater part of him wanted to point out how much worse SkekOk’s sin was than his own. But really, it was best to stay quiet and let the Scroll-keeper sink or swim by himself. SkekOk continued along that same vein, about his unfortunate and shameful sentimentality, how it was something he was afflicted with as a person of much theory and little action, and something about poetry, blah blah, before he eventually let his blathering run itself into a protracted whimper in the face of SkekSo’s contemptuous silence and knelt with his head against the edge of the table. 

Poor bastard. SkekNa would never grovel like that again. He’d done that once, after they’d said what they planned to do with his arm when he struck the Priest, and it had been useless, and he was the stronger for having endured that torture. Not that any of that made him happy to be standing here now. SkekNa didn’t want to lose any more pieces of himself, but, if he did, he would do it this time without pleading for a mercy that would never appear.

SkekSo let SkekOk whimper and drool on the tablecloth for an awkward minute before declaring, “Your excuses for your failures are deplorable. I could see you both punished grievously. However, because this situation is a novel one, I’m willing to be lenient, to grant that you didn’t understand the severity of your trespasses. I expect that both of you, that everyone present in this room, is now aware that my decrees are never to be taken lightly.”

“Of course, I understand fully, sire,” SkekOk agreed anxiously. 

“Going forward,” SkekSo continued, now glancing up and down the table to snag uneasy eyes with his own, “anyone who commits this offense–that of concealing the blasphemous speech of another–will be permanently deafened in at least one ear. Possibly both. If Skeksis can’t act responsibly upon hearing blasphemy, their hearing will be taken from them. Both of the Skeksis before me now are very fortunate that leniency has been extended, this time. They will be artificially, temporarily deafened, for three days, with a mechanical device. After that time, the Satirist will be appropriately castigated. Our erstwhile Priest, who is now to be called Ritual-Master, will be assisting us in carrying this out appropriately and effectively.”

SkekNa bit his tongue hard, focusing on the taste of his own blood, to keep from laughing, both in relief at his narrow escape and at the new title. As if that damned Priest didn’t have a big enough ego. 

Skeksis murmured their acknowledgment, bowing and cringing, and scattered as soon as it was safe to leave the table. SkekNa glanced back to see SkekUng and SkekLach both lingering. “Out,” SkekSo snapped. “Shut the door behind you.”

SkekNa tried not to scare at the device the Priest–oh, the whatever-he-was-now–approached him with. After all, it was temporary. It didn’t look very pleasant, some kind of steel circlet-type thing with an adjustable vice-like component that included a lock, and another hinged locking arc that must go under the chin, and little padded swiveling parts that apparently got shoved into the earholes. This certainly wouldn’t be fun or comfortable, but it could’ve been much worse. He stood still and closed his eyes, so as not to see the smug face of the Skeksis about to affix the device to him, and tried to listen to the only small sounds that remained in the room–the rustling of fabric, the light clack of claws on the floor, his own breath, that of SkekOk trying to keep himself under control. It wasn’t as if he’d never hear again, but the prospect of it lasting three days was enough to make him almost faint with relief and horror at what he’d barely avoided. 

“Keep your eyes closed,” instructed SkekZok, his sadistic delight undisguised now. _Gladly, you ugly bastard_ , SkekNa answered privately. The thing slid over his head, and the swiveling attachments invaded his ear canals. At first the sounds were still apparent, but they became more muffled as the screws on the device were adjusted until the circle of metal dug into his flesh, and the additional restraint clicked into the place beneath his chin, and the deafening nubs were firmly lodged in his ears. Now he understood why he’d been told to keep his eyes closed. Someone was clapping right next to his ear to see if he’d respond to the sound; the vibrissae around his beak picked up the disturbance the claps made in the air, but he heard nothing. Fuck, this was wretched. The device dug in and hurt, and the pressure in his ear canals seemed to travel into his sinuses. At least it was temporary. When had they even made these things? He could only assume they’d had SkekTek make them a while ago, in the event someone should ever require this particular punishment.

When they were both outfitted with the chastising device, SkekNa and SkekOk were set loose to push the doors open and tumble out into the hall, where SkekUng and SkekLach whisked them off in separate directions.


	8. Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SkekLi and SkekNa (and also SkekOk) manage. Incoming ritual.

“Fuckers. I’d lobotomize them through their eyeballs. I feel like my head is going to explode, I can’t hear a damned thing–”

“Yes, and you’re speaking really fucking loud. Keep it down,” SkekUng snapped, making a downward gesture with his hands to get his point across.

Instead of trying to modulate his speaking voice, SkekNa opted for a stage whisper. “They can all go fuck themselves.”

“You’re quick to forget that it could be worse,” SkekUng pointed out, uselessly. 

“I can’t hear you, moron,” the other stage whispered. This was going to be a long three days.

SkekUng shuffled around SkekNa’s sitting room and found some paper to write on: _Could be worse. What if was for good? Sit down & shut up._

“I know, I know. I still hate this. Fucking SkekLi. Fucking smug Priest.”

_YOU  
_ _NEED  
_ _TO  
_ _SHUT  
_ _UP._

SkekUng brandished the paper violently in SkekNa’s face.

“What I need is a drink.”

“Fine. Sit.” SkekUng pushed the other Skeksis none too gently into an armchair, did some more rummaging, and returned with an uncorked bottle of deep purple wine that he was already making use of. He handed off the bottle.

“I hate wine,” SkekNa hissed, taking a long gulp nonetheless.

“Why do you have it, then? …Never mind.”

“This one–Too dry. I hate it.”

“You’re welcome.” SkekUng huffed, wiped the drool seeping down from the corner of his mouth, and picked up the ledger again. _Want me to leave?_

“No! …Maybe. Yes. No.” SkekNa quaffed more of the offending wine. “I’m going to panic if I’m–alone, with this,” he admitted grudgingly, once again failing to gauge the volume of his voice. He hadn’t been this pathetic in many a trine.

“All right, all right.” SkekUng made the “volume down” gesture again. He tried to fit beside SkekNa in the armchair, which was a lost cause, and pulled him onto his lap instead, reaching around him with both arms to scribble rapidly in the ledger. _Won’t be forever. Could’ve gone worse. Glad they didn’t do worse. I’d be really f’ing sore if I could never cuss your dumb ass out again._

SkekNa made a swipe at his hand, leaving a trail of blood droplets where he’d barely broken skin.

“Ouch!” SkekUng hurled the ledger and pencil away. “Why am I afflicted with this damned rabid kiznet?” He wrapped his arms a tad constrictively around SkekNa and began grooming his ruff aggressively, occasionally biting him. “What did I do to deserve this? Fine, just drink your wine that you hate and shut up.” SkekNa stilled and quieted, tipping the rest of the wine back into his beak, then let the empty bottle roll onto the floor where a thick rug happily kept it from breaking. He laid his chin in the crook of SkekUng’s arm, succumbing to a drunken torpor. 

SkekUng sighed and took the opportunity to quietly lecture his unhearing companion, and to say things he wouldn’t normally have said, things that were too soft at the center, still grooming him a bit viciously. “Must be rough for you. Really though, you should be relieved. I’m relieved. I thought they were going to do something worse to you. I don’t know if I could stand by and see that happen again. It’d be all I could do not to rip someone’s fool head off. Shouldn’t matter to me what happens to you. But it does. If you could never hear me again, I’d–Shit, I could use some of that wine. You didn’t leave any of it for me. You’re a selfish prick, SkekNa, you know that?”

  


~~~

  


It had been SkekTek, as SkekLi figured it would be, who’d first found him early in the morning after he’d been left chained to the cage. The Satirist had been curled up sleeping with his back against the cage, a slumbering nebrie’s bulk against the bars on the other side barely brushing him–that comforted him a bit, breathing with some other living creature as they reposed in the dark–when he’d been woken by the lights coming back on and the Scientist’s indignant squawk.

“What are you doing here, cozying up to my study specimens? Ever since you fell in with those two barbarous excuses for–”

SkekLi unwound himself groggily (he often slept in a tightly curled heap with his tail over his beak), and the Scientist, now able to see the muzzle and the chains, stopped abruptly mid-rant. “Oh. Um, I…apologies, I should have inferred. Well, uhmm…” SkekTek stepped closer, skittish, glancing around frenetically as though at any moment he might be caught out fraternizing with a disgraced personage. “Are they planning to let you eat?”

SkekLi shrugged.

“Well, no matter, food isn’t as indispensable as Skeksis assume, one can go for nearly an unum without food, if circumstance necessitates it. How are they going to let you take water though, with the present arrangement? Dehydration can occur within days.”

SkekLi shrugged again. He was a bit hungry, but the thirst was already far more distracting. He couldn’t help looking up at SkekTek in silent appeal.

SkekTek glanced around again. “All right, fine, don’t tell anyone.”

SkekLi gestured at the muzzle and gave yet another shrug.

“Yes, noted. How much can you open your mouth?”

The Satirist tried.

The Scientist huffed. “A millimeter at most. I swear these Skeksis are willful ignoramuses,” he growled in an undertone. “Do they intend to let you expire of dehydration before they even–Ah, well. One moment.”

SkekTek soon returned with a couple of comically big syringes, probably intended to tranquilize or inject experimental substances into quite large creatures. “There’s just water in these. Tilt your head back, mind the needle.” SkekLi obliged, the ridiculously outsized needle just barely poking through the small gap the muzzle left between his jaws, a welcome squirt of water hitting the back of his throat twice before SkekTek left him. The Scientist proceeded to ignore him thereafter, understandably so. No one wanted to be caught acting friendly toward any Skeksis chained here.

SkekEkt and SkekAyuk had passed by some time after SkekTek got to work. The Ornamentalist yelped as though he’d never seen a Skeksis chained to the outside of a cage full of nebrie before, and the both of them began peppering SkekLi with questions. He waited to see how long it would take them to realize he was unable to answer, since it passed the time. Finally noting that his mouth was incapable of opening, they exclaimed about how much trouble he must be in, wondered loudly to each other what would become of him, and ambled away chattering. Wonderful. SkekTek was a quiet person, when he wasn’t holding forth to himself or to his animals, but these two were sure to spread word of SkekLi’s predicament rapidly. Hopefully no one else would come down here to gawk at him. Considering how unusually tense the mood had been in the Castle of late, maybe people would want to avoid him. 

Indeed, no one else had put in an appearance that first day other than SkekVar, who talked indignantly and inelegantly about how it wasn’t the place of such a pitiful weakling to offend the Emperor. SkekLi pretended to be asleep. SkekVar’s rants were boring and embarrassing; the fellow was so stupid it was a wonder he was able to draw breath. The General grew increasingly more agitated at the Satirist’s lack of response, and finally kicked him in the ribs. SkekLi snarled as he was jolted back against the cage, and the nebrie groaned at the disturbance. He’d have preferred to not react at all, to be silent like a tumbeloth retreating into its shell when someone harried it, but he had no shell. SkekVar kicked him a few more times, while he tried to relax, contrary to all instinct, to make himself boneless. These things hurt less when you weren’t tensed for them. The General grew frustrated with the Satirist’s unresponsiveness, and had at least the wisdom to leave rather than escalate his violence to the point where the Emperor might fault him for damaging SkekLi before he was officially chastised. 

No one else visited until late the next morning. The time of day was a guess, judging by how long SkekTek had been in the lab and when the late-rising SkekNa arrived. The Slave-keeper had an uncomfortable-looking device affixed firmly to his head, with little appendages that concealed his earholes and evidently extended into them. SkekNa plunked himself down on his haunches in front of SkekLi, glaring, and spoke in an exaggerated and unmodulated whisper that indicated he couldn’t hear himself accurately:

“I don’t know where to begin thanking you, SkekLi. See this fuckery? Three days, can’t hear for shit. Because I heard your forbidden words, and I failed to report you. I should’ve turned you in. How stupid was I? Won’t be making that mistake again, trust me.” He snickered, a little too loudly. SkekLi automatically made a downward shushing motion with his hands, at which SkekNa glowered in a way that suggested he’d already seen enough of that. “No, _never_ trust me,” he resumed in a rasp, sounding nearly livid. “I’ll see you skinned alive before I ever let you endanger me again.”

The Satirist did what he’d often been doing these days in the face of people who exhausted or threatened him, which was to lower his head and wait for it to stop. 

SkekNa reached out to grab the short chain between SkekLi’s wrists and yanked him forward to get in his face. “Don’t ignore me, you smug little shit, it’s your fault I’m in this. I hope they rip your tongue out.”

SkekLi couldn’t repress a cringing shudder. That thought had been at the back of his mind, and he’d been trying to ignore it. If they denied him his voice forever, he may as well be dead. Skeksis were supposed to fear death more than anything, but he envisioned then how he might be released from such a life, one without words or songs. He could hurl himself from the battlements, tie a cord around his neck and fall into it until it throttled him, perhaps goad one of these others into such a rage they ended up killing him. Skeksis weren’t supposed to kill Skeksis, but maybe he could make someone do it, so that he didn’t have to summon the grit to do it himself. Maybe he could get SkekNa to do it, since he seemed so keen now. As he’d known it would, the other’s sympathy had shown itself to be a highly contingent sentiment. 

The Slave-keeper leaned in close, the tip of his beak grazing SkekLi’s neck, and continued with less venom. Perhaps his sympathy wasn’t entirely extinguished, or maybe he was remembering his own time chained in this place. “No, I wouldn’t wish _that_ for you. I’m aware of the virtues of your tongue. But you should’ve shut the fuck up. You’re in trouble, I’m in trouble, Scroll-keeper’s in trouble, because of you.”

Oh, shit. SkekLi nudged his beak gently, ingratiatingly, against SkekNa’s to prompt him to elaborate.

SkekNa growled quietly but didn’t move away. “SkekOk’s fine, got the same as me. Two days from this evening, they’ll release us, and they’ll do–whatever they plan to do to you.”

It was good to be relieved at least of the temporal uncertainty, although now there would be the increased anxiety of time attenuating itself more painfully as the hour drew closer. A relief, too, that they hadn’t done something more awful to SkekOk. SkekLi ducked his head under SkekNa’s chin, trying to thank him for providing information where he could have vindictively withheld it. 

SkekNa seemed conflicted. He bit SkekLi’s nape, softly, still speaking in a hiss, “I should’ve turned you in. Fuck us both, honestly. I’ll be keeping clear of your cursed tail for a while.”

SkekLi tensed against the instinct to lean into the other Skeksis. The physical proximity was comforting even though SkekNa was none too happy with him. The other drew back almost gently; likely, he was remembering how hard it was to be in this place. SkekLi fought down the urge to cling or plead. How sorry was his lot, that he wanted the Slave-keeper to stay with him? 

Standing back and pondering the scene, SkekNa said, with as much joviality as his unmodulated whisper could convey, “You’d take amusement from this, if it’d been voluntary.”

SkekLi considered the chains and the muzzle, and he almost had to snicker. 

SkekNa smirked and hissed, “I’ll keep that in mind,” and slouched away into the shadowed corridors.

That interaction was the greatest extent to which SkekLi found any comfort over those three days (and that was three days counting from whenever the Emperor had started counting; it was probably closer to four days after the interrogation). SkekTek ignored him with pained and pointed deliberation, and SkekOk–understandably–didn’t visit. SkekUng didn’t dignify him with his presence, which was just as well. SkekSil passed by at some point, slowing his pace enough disgorge a grating series of his typical noises, but didn’t stop to talk.

SkekShod wandered through at some later point, for what purpose SkekLi wasn’t clear; he stared studiously into the nebrie cage until the Treasurer had passed. He felt as though SkekShod had been looking for any interesting tidbit to tell the Priest. There was something between those two, although its nature wasn’t clear. The Satirist smirked bitterly. Apparently much of the court had been convinced the Conqueror actually gave a shit about him despite the unlikelihood of that. Maybe the Treasurer hung just as uselessly upon the Priest? Maybe people thought “ah, how unusual, that one so esteemed should give the time of day to such a lowly Skeksis,” when really there was nothing at all underpinning that apparent closeness from the higher end? Perhaps that tapestry was equally as likely to fall off the wall if the wind came through the window from the wrong direction, not being secured from the top.

The itches that were unscratchable given the current restraints were deeply distracting. SkekLi rubbed his face on the cage bars and the floor, tried not to panic. The discomfort was minor, yet he was helpless to alleviate it, which only served to make him think about the prospect of being helpless against much worse. Sometimes he did panic, restraining himself until no one was around and screaming against the muzzle when he was alone. Was this worth it? He knew how the Emperor worked well enough to know that he would have been punished even had he been repentant, apologetic, disavowed SkekGra to all six heavenly lights. But how much worse would it be, given his refusal to recant or apologize? Was this worth it, for someone who had forsaken the Skeksis (forsaken SkekLi, all along)?

But really SkekGra’s feelings weren’t at issue here. It didn’t matter, at the marrow of it, what SkekGra thought or felt. What SkekLi thought and felt was the thing that counted. 

Even if he pretended at this late hour that he’d had a change of heart and made a pretense of recanting his words, that wasn’t likely to change his outcomes.

He often reached through the bars to pet the nebrie, which had flailed and grumbled indignantly at first but soon accepted his friendly overtures. Thank Thra for the nebries’ presence in the cage. It would be far worse without them. 

SkekLi assumed the worst, so that he could be ready for it. He oscillated between a serene acceptance, an inexplicable feeling that probably came down to his own mind unconsciously attempting to save him from itself, and a terror that wracked his nerves with a molten chill. He’d have liked to talk out the options with himself. It made it worse, that he couldn’t. He considered the nuances of communication. If he were to be left completely voiceless, would there be any bearable way to answer that, any way to communicate with the full context and subtext that speech and song offered? –maybe, if anyone was willing to commit time and effort to communicate with him, but who would be? If they took his tongue from him, he would attempt an escape, or he would attempt to die. Would that be meaningful to Skeksis, if he willingly died, would that make them reconsider their harsh policies? 

Skeksis were horrified at the idea of death, and that might partially be owing to the minds that had been given them at the sundering, or it might be an artifact from the beings that had come before, who were apparently deathless for all intents and purposes unless some outside circumstance should end their lives. The almost non-existent ripples of memory, from before, occasionally hit SkekLi with clarity, but they disappeared as quickly as they materialized, like a dream one _knows_ one had but can’t grasp after waking. He’d studied language, before he was bisected into two parts of which only one was now him, he suspected. Had he known SkekGra well, in that before-time? Or–or–what had the name been–? Gra– Well, no matter, SkekLi was a Skeksis, here and now, regardless of his eccentricities within Skeksis society. Whatever had come before was irrelevant to what was happening now.

_Are you happy now? Is my punishment sufficient to the offense of wanting you?_

~~~

Dinner was wrapping up when SkekSo briefly rose to say something. SkekLach elbowed SkekOk, who was still stuck in the device that blocked his hearing, and indicated gesturally that they’d all been admonished to remain seated. After the Podlings had cleared away all of the plates, leftovers, and themselves, leaving the Skeksis alone, the Emperor walked to stand behind SkekNa’s chair. The Slave-keeper winced but kept still as SkekSo’s hands came down beside his face, jeweled talons grazing him under the chin for a moment before moving to unlock and unscrew the device. SkekNa looked relieved, bemused, and a little uneasy, as though he didn’t know whether to thank the Emperor or keep quiet. He must have opted for keeping quiet, since SkekOk didn’t see his mouth move, and bowed his head.

SkekSo came and repeated the same process on the Scroll-Keeper, who copied SkekNa’s reaction. The world suddenly seemed very loud, although no one was talking and there was only the fidgeting of Skeksis and the clanking of their jewelry and regalia.

SkekSo went to stand before the table. “The unfortunate turn of events recently has, in fact, opened a door to create something meaningful. It’s brought to our attention that our system of punishment was lacking. Henceforth, there will be a ritual for punishments, to strengthen our sense of purpose and identity. We are all Skeksis, and we are all Lords of the Crystal, even when we falter.”

“Ohhh,” murmured the Skeksis, exchanging glances. 

“We’ll be practicing the new ritual before we proceed with this evening’s–occupation. Now, are you lot capable of falling into two even lines, facing each other, or does SkekZok need to appoint a place to stand for each of you?”

The Skeksis attempted to do as directed, whereupon much shouldering and growling and stumbling ensued. “Don’t bite Chamberlain!” SkekSil was heard to shriek in the chaos.

The Emperor gazed ceilingward, beset by stupidity. “That answers that question. Ritual-Master, please sort everyone out.”

The newly-titled Ritual-Master sorted everyone out. SkekSo stood in line with them, at one end. SkekZok stood near him but not in line, as though ready to walk down the aisle of Skeksis he’d created.

The Emperor looked up and down the lines and nodded. “Remember where you’re standing, this will be how you stand during the ritual from now on. Now, hopefully this next part won’t tax your poor brainmeat too much. Whenever the Ritual-Master speaks a phrase, you all respond, in unison, with ‘We must be punished.’ Clear?”

They all nodded, some quite eagerly.

“Very good. Ritual-Master, please begin.”

“When we fail ourselves…”


	9. Ransom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We must be punished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter warnings:**
> 
> Graphic depictions of torture/violence.  
> Also. SkekNa’s POV cutaways are a bit of an issue here. Bear in mind Na and Ung are both sadists in the most specific sense of the term.

SkekLi was standing before the throne, the others arrayed in a circle around him, the chains still restraining his wrists. They’d removed the straps from around his beak, but he didn’t speak. He would not crawl or beg, he told himself repeatedly, focusing intently on the words in his head, he would not, it would be pointless and only serve to entertain the Skeksis still more at his own expense. The nauseating fear endeavored to push him down. If he concentrated on standing despite the shaking and the fear and the fatigue of thirst and hunger, maybe that would also keep him focused enough to avoid opening his beak and pleading uselessly.

SkekSo allowed him to stand there uneasily for a few long, silent moments, then began, “You’re fortunate, SkekLi. You’re going to help us inaugurate a new ritual.”

What? For the barest flash of an instant, in the irrational state of terror, the Satirist had heard “you’re fortunate” and thought that next he might hear that he was pardoned. He very much doubted there was anything fortunate, for him, about a “new ritual.”

“It’s an honor,” put in SkekZok from his place in the circle, nearest the Emperor’s right hand. “This ritual will accompany all significant chastisements from now on.”

If he agreed with them that it was an honor, would they go lighter on him? Probably not. SkekLi concentrated on the intricate designs on the floor. 

“You may speak, before we begin,” SkekSo said generously.

Should he speak? What if he and his tongue were about to part ways, and this was his last chance to ever do so? But what would he say? He would want the last thing he was ever able to speak aloud to be meaningful, not the craven pleas that might possibly tumble out if he got started, not the curses that were also likely to tumble out and exacerbate his situation. He shook his head.

“No? Usually you’re so eager to run your mouth. Maybe the time in chains we gave you to reflect has made you wiser.”

A few Skeksis snickered.

“And you’re still not willing to recant your wrong-minded words?”

SkekLi shook his head again.

SkekZok inquired, mildly, “And why not?”

He considered refraining from answering, but maybe that would get him in still more trouble. One never really knew around here. Finally he said, still staring at the floor since it was far preferable to SkekZok’s predatory face, “I can only say that I won’t speak such a thing again. I think, Lord SkekZok, it’s–metaphysically implausible to take back what I already spoke.”

“Oh? Please elaborate.”

“Meta-whatnow?” SkekAyuk could be heard to mutter.

“Well, consider the view of time as linear. There’s no way I can revoke what’s already said and done. Then, consider the–the view of time as non-linear, everything happening at once, in a way we’re too limited to understand. If that’s so, I still can’t revoke it, because it’s always been happening and will always be happening.”

SkekZok said with an unnerving tone of kindness, “SkekLi, you are confusing revoke and recant. Or more likely you’re being deliberately obtuse. You’re right, your words are irrevocable. You could still recant them. That indicates remorse, a spirit taking the proper steps to cleanse itself of words or deeds that have sullied it.”

SkekLi would have liked to lurch forward and try to bite SkekZok. Of course the fellow was quite right about the intentional conflation of unrelated concepts, but the idea that he was _sullied_ by SkekGra’s name was infuriating. Good, maybe that anger would be enough to keep him from panicking and falling in a whining heap. That was all his tangent had been anyway, another way to hold off the panic, to imagine that, somewhere, he was always saying that name in some much happier circumstance. 

The Priest–rather, the Ritual-Master, as they were calling him now (what a load)–said, apparently to the Emperor, “Five?”

“Yes, five.”

“One for speaking that which is forbidden the first time, one for speaking that which is forbidden the second time, one each for the punishments SkekOk and SkekNa incurred on your account, and one for your failure to recant,” SkekZok enumerated ominously.

What was this? Was he going to get lashes in addition to the “significant chastisement”? Certainly he wouldn’t be getting only lashes, after the big fuss they’d made of this. As people began shuffling around, bringing in some apparatus, SkekLi stood unmoving and tried to distract himself by envisioning a scenario in which the punishment was actually just the whip. It would be hilarious, given he’d received a few lashes more than once for minor infractions and had secretly enjoyed it. He’d have to pretend he was suffering greatly through the five lashes. SkekNa would call his bluff and demand another punishment. Hilarious.

SkekVar and SkekUng laid hold of him and strapped him by the ankles and neck to a heavy chair. The strap around his neck was tight enough to make it hard to breathe. They definitely wanted to make sure he stayed still. SkekUng eased SkekLi’s beak open with his hands, staring him in the eye as though daring him to bite. Despite some manner of friendly dynamic between the two of them, the Commander was clearly enjoying himself. That was usually how it went. Skeksis enjoyed seeing others humiliated and punished, unless they were extremely close to the person, and SkekUng was particularly sadistic. 

Some vicelike thing went around SkekLi’s upper jaw, then the lower one, then something else that attached to both and cranked his mouth wide open. His jaw immediately ached from it, but it was probably just as well. Now he couldn’t form the words to beg even if fear got the better of him and he tried to. 

Brandishing their ceremonial staves, everyone fell into two lines, facing each other. SkekZok stood at the other end of the aisle formed by the others, facing SkekLi. The Satirist couldn’t swallow and he could already feel spit building up. He was going to start drooling any second now, which was probably the least of his worries. Holding a medium-sized box, the Ritual-Master took a step into the aisle, proceeding with a stately mien toward SkekLi. “When we fail ourselves…”

There was a jarring, clanking thud as the Skeksis brought the ends of the staves down on the floor. “We must be punished,” they all responded loudly in unison, some practically shrieking with glee as they spoke. SkekLi made a point of not looking too closely at anyone’s face. He didn’t want to see to what extent certain characters who were generally sympathetic toward him, SkekOk and SkekTek mostly, were enjoying this. He was definitely drooling now. 

“When we fail each other…”

_Thud._ “We must be punished.” What was in the box?

“When we fail our Emperor…”

_Thud._ “We must be punished!” This little scene was ridiculous and terrifying at the same time. He would choose to remember it as ridiculous, he decided. 

SkekZok was standing in front of SkekLi now. The Ritual-Master opened the box, withdrew something like a large, fancy set of pliers, and SkekVar stepped out of the line to take them. The item made SkekLi’s stomach lurch. It was just as well SkekTek had only snuck him a bit of water three times and he hadn’t been fed during his interlude in chains; he couldn’t shit himself now. The handoff of the implement seemed to cue the end of the ceremonial nonsense, for the Skeksis broke formation and came to stand around the chair, the better to view the evening’s entertainment. They loomed above the Satirist, mumbling excitedly.

SkekLi’s tongue instinctively pressed itself down flat. If they were going to use that thing to grab it and tear it out, he was in for a rough time. Was there also a knife in that box that they’d at least use to cut after they started pulling, or did they intend to just yank until his tongue ripped loose? That was liable to suffocate him against the strap that was already digging into his trachea, or to dislocate something in his neck. Thank Thra for his mouth being clamped open, he’d be whinging now otherwise. 

SkekVar, huffing importantly, leaned down, holding the pliers open. SkekLi let out a voiceless sob and tried uselessly to turn away, prompting jeers from the crowd. He squeezed his eyes closed–and was actually _relieved_ when he felt the instrument grip one of his teeth, the one closest to the front on the top and left. That was what they’d meant by “five,” five _teeth_. That would be a great loss, might impact the clarity of his speech, but that could be worked around. He tried to keep that in his mind, that this was much better than he’d been bracing for, as the excruciating pain arrived.  


~~~

  
“For your failure to recant–that is, a spiritual failure, of your self,” SkekZok explained, holding up the first tooth after SkekVar had wiped the blood and drool from it, then casually dropping it into the same box the pliers had come out of.

SkekNa was partway behind the chair and didn’t have the best view. He stood on tiptoe and craned his head over, trying to see SkekLi’s face a bit better. SkekUng, behind him, was tall enough to see the proceedings more clearly, lucky bastard. SkekUng was also availing himself of the fact that everyone was packed so close together that no one really noticed just how close he was to SkekNa, rubbing his groin against his back every so often. The two of them were cut from similar cloth, and both were enjoying the Satirist’s screams and trashing tail in an unwholesome way. 

SkekVar leaned back in with the pliers, prompting another series of gurgling wails and screams as he yanked and tugged several times from several different angles. Drool and blood were expelled from SkekLi’s mouth in a foul froth that dripped onto his lap and restrained hands when he screamed particularly loudly. 

How kind of them to return SkekNa’s hearing to him before this event. He reached behind him and tried to push SkekUng away a bit when the other ground against his back again. That could potentially make things really uncomfortable. SkekNa wanted to turn and sink his claws into him and fuck him right here, while watching this. It was one thing to enjoy punishments, _but_.

SkekVar snorted in satisfaction as the second tooth pulled loose, and again wiped it and handed it to SkekZok. The Ritual-Master held it up again–“For the punishment SkekOk incurred due to you, a failure of another.”–and dropped it in the box.

Ah, then this next one would be for SkekNa. The Slave-keeper carefully noted which one the General was working on now. Third tooth back, on the left. He would remember that place. He’d make a point of avoiding SkekLi for a while, as many would and as he in particular had good cause to do, but he would remember which tooth that was so he could stick his tongue in that empty space someday. That thought sent such a vicious stab of arousal through him that he forcibly stopped trying to think it before he lost his composure completely and someone noticed. He had to stop watching SkekLi’s anguished face for a while, too, and missed seeing the third tooth come out.

“For the punishment SkekNa incurred due to you, again, a failure of another.” The only thing SkekZok had ever said that sounded pleasant to SkekNa’s ears. SkekUng knew him too well, knew precisely what he was thinking, and slid one hand along his side, down toward his hip. SkekNa grabbed the hand and thrust it away. He’d be having words with SkekUng when they were alone. Hadn’t he just narrowly escaped a severe punishment himself? The last thing he needed was to get in trouble for interrupting the first-ever punishment ritual with a violent orgasm.

SkekVar moved to SkekLi’s right side for the final two teeth. He was about to go for the frontmost one when SkekSo ordered, “I told you, not that one. Second one back.” That was an interesting choice. It would make SkekLi’s mouth asymmetrical. Actually, it was a brilliant choice, SkekNa had to grant the Emperor that. One fang sitting alone at the front would only make it more obvious that the others were missing.

  
  
~~~  
  


“For the first utterance of that which is not to be spoken, a failure of your Emperor.”

Just one more. SkekLi was slobbering, dry heaving, pulling at his restraints, and felt ready to pass out. He wished he would, although then they’d probably revive him before finishing. 

The last one would be for the “second utterance”. A gap on the right side of his mouth where SkekGra’s name used to be. He tried to think about SkekGra, even though that was generally what he was going to need to start trying _not_ to do, even though every pleasant memory he had of the erstwhile Conqueror had been sullied by the fact that the depth of SkekLi’s affection had clearly shown itself unrequited; for the time being, that didn’t matter, all that mattered was this anguish and trying to see himself through it. The sounds of his own screaming, which had at first been a shock to him, were all too familiar now. It seemed as though he had always been screaming and would never stop. 

He remembered SkekGra chasing him through the grass, that night in their youth he’d sensed a moment to make his overture and it had been accepted, catching him and pinning him on his stomach and closing his jaws around the back of his neck. The evening had been slightly chilly, but that soon ceased to be an issue. 

SkekLi heard himself stop screaming. 

“For the second utterance of that which is not to be spoken, again, a failure of your Emperor,” SkekZok concluded. 

The Satirist slackened in relief, although the pain in his mouth was still acute and his jaw muscles were aching and cramping at the long wrenching-open of his beak. More blood and drool trickled warm over his hands. There were some bombastic concluding remarks from the Ritual-Master that he paid no heed to, and then SkekUng was removing the vices from his beak. SkekLi closed his mouth to swallow the latest accumulation of fluids, and then spoke raspily and awkwardly, his voice unused for days, the teeth that would usually have helped his tongue to articulate certain sounds absent. “Sire–may I keep my teeth?”

SkekUng, crouched over to untie his ankles from the chair, looked up with interest. Of course, SkekNa had asked for something similar, his arm bones, when he’d been punished with the removal of something. 

The Emperor stepped closer to SkekLi and gripped him under the chin, which sent a jolt of pain though his whole abused mouth and made him whimper inadvertently as he looked up at SkekSo. “It’s a wonder you dare ask for anything, after the mercy we showed. Don’t think we didn’t consider taking your tongue, SkekLi. You deserved it. The only reason we didn’t is that your sole uses to us are songs and stupid quips and translation. We wouldn’t have you rendered useless to us.”

SkekLi flinched. He should let this matter rest. But then, if they couldn’t take his tongue, what else could they do? Well, a lot, but not the one thing that would ruin him the most. “I would like them. Please.”

To his surprise, SkekUng put in, “You allowed SkekNa to keep his bones, when he asked. Sire, do you think that set a precedent?”

“No, SkekUng, it did not set–” SkekSo stopped and pondered. Perhaps it was some odd whim, or perhaps he didn’t want to appear inconsistent. “As you like. Note that, SkekZok. If a punishment involves the removal of part of a Skeksis, they’re entitled to keep that part if they wish.”

“I thank my Emperor,” SkekLi rasped, sincerely. He didn’t know why he wanted the teeth, but he did know that the thought of them being destroyed or tossed in the rubbish or left on a shelf somewhere upset him.

“Very good. The Scientist wanted to study them, first opportunity to look at Skeksis tooth roots or somesuch. He can look at them until tomorrow, and then they’ll be brought back to you undamaged.” SkekSo, seeming amused with himself, glanced over to where SkekNa was still lingering around (most of the Skeksis were dispersing), and said, “SkekNa started this whole ‘let’s keep our body parts lying around’ fad, we’ll have him bring them to you tomorrow evening.”

~~~

  
SkekUng had barely closed his door behind them when SkekNa lunged at him, catching him off guard enough to actually topple him over, and set on him with a violent mix of arousal and anger, managing to swat him across the face before he could retaliate, “Were you trying to get me killed?”

SkekUng threw SkekNa off, pouncing before he could get up again and landing on him heavily enough to momentarily knock the wind out of him. “Shit, first time I get to actually talk to you in three days, and you make my first words to you be ‘Go fuck yourself’?”

The Slave-keeper regained his breath, struggling futilely. “You’re the one always telling me to sit down and shut up. You don’t think maybe it would’ve been trouble for me if I just popped off and came during the middle of that?”

That gave SkekUng pause. “…No, you’re right. I was–That was very exciting and you’re–you’re–Watching you watching was–Forgive.”

The words and the rare flustered moment were almost enough to make SkekNa forget his anger, but he grumbled, “Maybe. Get off me.”

“No.” 

“Fine. I’m never forgiving you.”

“Yes you will,” SkekUng murmured, tongue trailing down SkekNa’s throat. “You already have.”

SkekNa kept up his struggling, but the anger was gone and there was only the same violent arousal as before. “Right, I admit that was–fun. Or, would’ve been, if I wasn’t worried about making a scene. Wanted to fuck you right there.” SkekUng ground down against him with an urgent snarl, which made him draw his breath in with a sharp hiss and bite the side of the other’s neck just enough to draw blood. “I am glad to hear you again though.”

~~~  
  


SkekZok, of all people, helped SkekLi stagger back to his quarters after SkekTek had stuffed the empty sockets with some gauzy ointment-covered material (just to prevent infection, nothing to help the pain of course). SkekLi would rather have walked alone, even if it meant falling and crawling, than be obliged to lean on that golden arm, but there was no refusing this help at this time. SkekZok surely knew this and was amused to cause more discomfort.

“You are honored, you know,” the Ritual-Master said charitably, after they’d gone most of the way in silence. The Satirist swallowed down a growl of contempt. “There was–an intangible but significant imbalance in this Castle, after the Heretic left. We didn’t enact his punishment with the proper ceremony, and our failure darkened our halls. By your…participation in this ritual, you’ve not only cleansed your being by undergoing suitable chastisement, you’ve helped everyone who dwells here. Order will be restored.” 

They stopped in front of SkekLi’s door. “Think of this way, Satirist,” SkekZok continued: “You and SkekNa needed to be ransomed by SkekSa, but now you’ve also helped to ransom this Castle. Your spirit is purged, and your debt is paid.”

This Skeksis was so full of shit. SkekLi lowered his head, which was nearly enough to unbalance him, and said courteously, “I see.” It hurt to talk.

“Can you handle yourself from here?”

“Yes, thank you.” _Fuck you_. The last thing he wanted now was the Ritual-Master in his quarters.

As soon as he had the door closed behind him and he was alone, SkekLi’s strength gave out. He barely managed to sit down shakily, to avoid a fall, before passing out on the rug.


	10. Show Me Your Teeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There was nothing ‘nice’ about anything that went on in this Castle.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another long chapter, it kind of all needed to be here thematically. 
> 
> I’d give chapter warnings, but nothing/everything here stands out as particularly heinous. This has a lowkey/highkey sadistic undertone throughout. If you’ve made it this far, the chapter is probably fine. If not, I am ready to be yeeted into the sun anyway.

Daylight, early afternoon, was pouring garishly through the window. His head pounded and his throat felt like he’d drunk half the desert. SkekLi swallowed the blood pooling under his tongue, his jaw and gums throbbing at the simple movement. He lay where he was for a short while, his chin in the small crimson pool that had already escaped onto the rug, before urgency struck him. The Scientist had made the danger of dehydration quite clear, and he’d hardly had any water for over four days.

SkekLi crawled into the washroom, exhaling in relief when the rugs under him gave way to slate, and eyed the washbasin blearily. Seeing he wouldn’t be able to stand up to reach it, he turned to the tub instead. He pulled himself up enough to collapse with the tub’s rim under his arms, then grasped at the cold water handle. Damn thing wouldn’t move, was it stuck or was he really so enfeebled? He wrenched it hard, and a torrent abruptly cascaded into his half-open beak. The water pressure was enough to set his wounds singing again. He yowled and coughed, turning away. The handle wasn’t amenable to further attempts to move it. He hoisted himself awkwardly over the edge of the tub and sprawled there like a squashed spider, lapping up the water that pooled briefly around the drain. The water hitting the bottom of the basin sounded loud in his ears, like a hundred-trine storm battering at the castle.

_And they walked, into the desert._

He lost himself for an indeterminate time in hallucinations or half-waking dreams, sometimes aware of the sound of the water for what it was, and sometimes it changed into a roar of crowds crying for blood, or a great storm sweeping over Bah-Lem until the tall grasses shivered prostrate. Once he fancied he was out in that storm with SkekGra, that they’d been overtaken before they could flee and were hunkered down between their two phegnese for shelter. _When will this be over?_ SkekLi yelled plaintively in the screaming wind. SkekGra looked at him with a kindness that had never actually been there, before, speaking softly but somehow still audible, _It already is._

SkekLi came back to himself with a small start, saline rolling unhelpfully down his beak and into his mouth. True, it was over, he’d already been punished (which he?), that was behind and the road could go nowhere but onward. He lapped up more water, hauled himself from the tub, and disengaged with effort from the damp tunic that clung stubbornly. He felt a bit stronger now, but more cognizant of the pain. It occurred to him that SkekZok hadn’t fully elucidated the reasoning behind his spiritual pratings. Somehow, SkekLi’s punishment had been connected to SkekGra’s. That thought was comforting, for now, though he could imagine coming to resent it at times. 

There was a satchel around his neck, which SkekTek had insightfully put there, with more gauzy filler stuff and ointment. If it hadn’t been right there, SkekLi probably would have misplaced or forgotten it. He really ought to re-dress these bloody holes in his mouth. He considered trying to stand up and look in the glass. After all, he’d need to be able to look at himself eventually, to come to accept a maimed reflection as normal. Well, not just yet. It was stomach-turning enough to pull out the saturated wads of fabric without looking. 

He’d be expected to hide in his quarters for a couple days, then to skulk around shamefully and avoid group meals for a while. Just as well. He didn’t want to be anywhere near them for now. He hated them, but he knew that would also pass, because Skeksis had only each other in the end and there were very few of them. They all needed, not to forgive, but to forget the indignities wrought by their fellows (at least, until reminded by some slight, and then to forget again after the reminder had played itself out in harsh words or blood).

But the Emperor had said they’d be sending SkekNa up with his teeth, yes? SkekLi carefully finished tamping fresh packing into the last hole with the end of a talon. He should at least have himself and this place cleaned up by the time SkekNa came by; that one was like an arduff, easily riled by blood and weakness, prone to attack or molest if there were none around to call him off. Best to think about practical matters now anyway, such as clean clothes and clean floors, simple matters that were rendered significant hurdles when one found oneself in such a state.   


~~~

  


“This has unfolded to your liking, my Emperor?”

  
“Thus far, I would say so. We made a point about defiance of my will, we closed out the Heretic matter in a way that emphasized that point but also reminded Skeksis of our mercy. We could have done worse to all three of them, especially the Satirist.”

“SkekLi was a particularly suitable vehicle for this project, given his loyalty to the Heretic.”

“Indeed. Not that SkekGra–” Of course the Emperor could still say the name, with none else around but his spiritual advisor; the moratorium on its utterance applied only to the stupid masses. ”–would have appreciated the effort.”

“You think not?” SkekZok agreed with SkekSo’s assessment, and his question was mostly rhetorical, but the Emperor still had some spleen to vent:

“The Heretic had no concern for anything but himself. Clever fellow, well-read, well-traveled, and completely oblivious to anything beyond his own immediate gratification. He was pliable enough to be put to good use, if it gave him that gratification. But, no real loyalty, not to Empire, not to Skeksis, certainly not to some–song-teller.”

“Fascinating choice of terms, sire.”

“I use a Gelfling term for SkekLi with good reason. He has…strange concepts in his mind that are, frankly, not in his best interests. He’s smarter than some give him credit for, but I’d be loath to punish him any more harshly. He is weak, inconsequential, and the Emperor can’t be seen to be too concerned about the conduct of such a person.”  
  
“Do you think he’ll present any further trouble?”

“If he values his tongue as much as I suspect he does, no real trouble. He’s had his tantrum, seen the repercussions. Deep down, he must know that the Heretic was incapable of giving a shit about him. He might care to rethink what sort of risky and… _principled_ behavior he’s willing to engage in.”

~~~  
  
  
SkekLi had managed to scrub himself down, then the tub, then the washroom floor. The rugs would need to wait, and anyway, they had dark patterns that nearly swallowed the evidence of his bleeding. Feeling faint, he wrapped a dressing gown around himself and tottered out into the sitting room to land heavily on the cushioned window seat. He’d filled a waterskin, usually taken on outings, since he was liable to spill an uncovered vessel. Curling up in the window, he swallowed a few more mouthfuls. It hurt to do so, but the water seemed uncommonly good. His mood kept shifting over him like the fast-scudding clouds over the plain, and, for this moment, his mood was like the water. It was uncommonly good to have lived through the worst of that. He watched the shadows of the clouds moving on the river and the rolling expanse of green. From up here, one could see that most of Bah-Lem was sunny, with great creeping blots of shadow where cloudbanks passed over like sky-ships. A much different perspective than being under the cloud.

It visited him like the sudden sparkling of the water, when the suns struck it again after a cloud’s passing, what he would do with his teeth when he got them back.

  
  
~~~  
  


SkekNa wasn’t overly pleased to be tasked with delivering SkekLi’s teeth. The Scientist greeted him with a profound glare, as if it had been SkekNa’s idea to return the specimens to their owner. 

“I could have used more time to– _”_

“Just carrying out our Emperor’s will, SkekTek. He said, hand them over before dinner, not after. And not during. I’m not missing dinner to be an errand-runner, and anyway, you’re not to skip it either. Everyone’s supposed to be there tonight, for morale or something.”

“As though this isn’t another blow dealt to my own morale–one of legion, I might add–to have these specimens ripped out from under–”

“I’m a busy Skeksis, care to take your grievance to Emperor instead of whinging at someone who didn’t have any say in it? Yeah, I thought not.” SkekNa extended his hook, clacking its tines impatiently. “Give it here.”

SkekTek handed off the small box reluctantly. “Ah, well, at least I had some small opportunity to study them, unlike that time a complete set of Skeksis forearm bones evaded the enlightening gaze of science.”

SkekNa quickly transferred the box to his remaining hand to snap the hook perilously near the other’s face. “Poor SkekTek, everyone’s always so mean to you. You’ll be glad to know I still have all my bones, safe and sound–” (And full of tooth marks, but that was beside the point.) “–but you’ll never lay your slimy talons on them. Ever.”

The Scientist cringed back from the hook, but huffed in disdain. “What under all the suns did you do with them, anyway?”

SkekNa leaned in close and murmured with a leer, “You don’t want to know.” He turned on his heel, smirking as he left SkekTek grumbling under his breath in a scandalized tone. 

The Slave-keeper’s mood continued to improve as he wound his way up toward SkekLi’s rooms. It was always fun to discomfit SkekTek. And anyway, delivering these teeth could be viewed as an amusing opportunity, not a chore. He’d get to see how the Satirist was taking this. Not to mention…

SkekNa stopped in a quiet alcove, out of the way of general foot traffic, and opened the little box. He drew back the folded scrap of cloth, leaned down, and sniffed; the teeth smelled much like his bones had after some time spent in a strong solution, clean but unnatural. He picked one up carefully between two talons. Surely SkekLi wouldn’t want to get these things back smelling like the lab, they should be washed. SkekNa’s tail lashed at the deliciously inappropriate idea of having intimate contact with the teeth before returning them to their owner. When he tried licking the one he held up, though, it tasted just like it smelled. So that was off the table. Well, he’d tried. He spent a couple minutes looking at the teeth. His visual memory was acute, and he was able to tell which one was which even though they looked almost entirely alike. Poor SkekLi, to have such an integral part of him, one that had been taken from him with such degrading public torment, first poked and prodded by the Scientist and now pawed by such a disgusting cretin as the Slave-keeper. SkekNa smiled happily, his mood now elevated, closed the box, and went on his way.

  


~~~  
  
  
SkekLi had begun scanning the alphabets of various languages aloud, to see which sounds he would need to articulate differently with most of his front teeth gone. No two Skeksis had the same number or placement or shape of teeth, and everyone had needed to intuitively adapt to language on their own terms when they first came into being. SkekLi could certainly do the same once again, with concerted effort. The fronted dental and alveolar phonemes were the only ones that would need to be rehabilitated. For some of those, he could use the one front tooth that remained with minimal impact on the prior quality of his speech. For others, he would need to use the edge of his beak, in lieu of his vanished teeth, to replicate the tongue strike against the tips or backs of said teeth. 

“Tsya–” Bit more to the right. “Khthwa–” Bit more. “Thra.” He snickered giddily to himself. They wouldn’t fetter his speech, not like this. He’d adjust to this condition in no time. 

But he was tired, and he’d lapsed from consciousness again while mumbling to himself and still watching the clouds. There was a rap at the door, of which he was only distantly aware. Last time there’d been someone at his door while he slept, it had been disastrous; but he was also a great deal more tired now than he’d been then, and, as he’d already experienced, the worst they could do was barge in and demand he wake up to face interrogation or punishment. SkekLi’s eyelids flickered weakly. Only the last sun remained in the sky, and the encroaching dimness combined with the final protestation of that dying light created a bloody chiaroscuro across the backs of his hands. He didn’t answer the door. Probably SkekNa? Let him come in then, if he could. 

Despite the impatient rapping and the quality of the light, SkekLi had almost fallen unconscious again when he heard the door swing inward. Either SkekNa had come provisioned with a key, or he’d left long enough to get the door unlocked for him. It shut again with a dull thud. SkekLi didn’t care. He knew the names of all three suns in a dozen languages, and he would find a way to say them all again if it killed him. Now he just wanted rest, for there to be quiet. He closed his eyes to a slit, not moving or speaking to acknowledge the visitor, watched the blurry wash of rapidly-dimming light and colors. The cushion shifted as someone else sat down next to him, their leg resting against the curve of his spine.

“Ey. SkekLi.” SkekNa placed a hand under SkekLi’s left shoulder blade and jostled him lightly. “Got the thing you wanted. You awake?”   
  
  
He didn’t respond, remained limp and kept his eyes slitted.

SkekNa made a quiet sound, something between a snicker and a sigh. “You can’t fool me. I’ve been in a similar position…” He curled himself down over SkekLi, hand and hook braced on the cushion on either side of his neck, nudged his cheek in a creepy facsimile of comradery. “Except your ally is gone. I don’t envy you. But, not to worry, I’ve got the teeth you asked for. I understand completely. I asked for something similar, yeah?”

SkekLi didn’t have it in him to respond to the other’s form pressed against his, neither to move closer nor to shrink away. He breathed as levelly as he could, his spine rising and falling against SkekNa’s chest. Seeing his indifference, SkekNa opted for a bit of verbal cruelty: “Don’t think I didn’t watch closely, that whole time. I know which one is which. I made a point of remembering, even as distracted as I was. Me and SkekUng both, hard pressed not to make a mess of our robes right there, your suffering was so good.”

SkekLi tried not to flinch in disgust. Of course, had it had time to cross his mind, he’d have guessed that those two would hardly have had any other reaction. And of course, he’d understood that SkekTek, a relatively mild character but one who was strident when it came to opportunities for study, would be poking at his stolen teeth until the last possible moment. And it stood to reason that SkekNa would have at least looked at the teeth; it’d be fortunate if he’d done nothing more than to look. It would have been nice to have his missing parts returned to him unmolested, nice not to have to hear from SkekNa about what a turn-on his torment had been–But to think about all of it in any such resentful, regretful way was pointless. There was nothing “nice” about anything that went on in this Castle. SkekLi would need to wash his teeth thoroughly, to try and forget the eyes and hands that had already been on them, before doing what he planned to do with them.

SkekNa, still sitting pressed up behind SkekLi and leaning heavily onto him so that they breathed together, proceeded to lay the teeth out on the fabric near the Satirist’s jaw, reasonably close to where they’d been prior to their dislodgement. “Don’t fret, here they are. I remember them all. This one”–SkekNa brushed a fingertip lightly across SkekLi’s beak after setting down the last tooth, the spot on the left where the third one back would’ve been–”is mine, for what they did to me on your account. I hope that makes you happy. It certainly makes me happy.”

Judging from what was pressing against SkekLi’s sacrum, it made SkekNa a bit too happy. SkekLi sighed plaintively. It was probably too much to hope that his visitor would be moved by the similarities of their respective incidents, or still housed any last dregs of the sympathy he’d shown toward SkekLi’s loss of SkekGra. But SkekNa did in fact draw back a bit, saying cheerfully, “Not in the mood, eh? Well shit, I can’t imagine why not.”

SkekLi snorted with unexpected laughter, which hurt and launched a bit of bloody gauze out of his mouth and onto the cushion. Both of them snickered, together. Things felt almost normal for a moment. 

“Ah well. You’re lucky I’ve already spent too much time hanging about here. I’m still not on the best footing in court, myself. Can’t be associating with the likes of you for a little while. Enjoy your teeth.”

Relieved to be let alone, yet almost wanting SkekNa’s company to continue, SkekLi gripped his wrist weakly as he made to stand up. SkekNa peered back down at him, and he raised his head enough to nuzzle the other’s beak lightly. “Hmh,” muttered SkekNa, returning the gesture, before leaving.

  


~~~

  
SkekUng had finished checking the armalig pens, glancing over each one to ensure things were properly secured and that each animal had food, water, and a reasonably clean enclosure. He moved on to the phegnese. SkekNa trailed behind him as they spoke in low voices. 

“…day after tomorrow? I only just got back, hardly two weeks ago, my Commander.”

“I know, I know. Not my decision. I’m surprised SkekSo didn’t send us out sooner, honestly. He was pretty damned keen on getting rid of these Gruenak.”

“Yes, I remember that, I helped with it in the Castle,” SkekNa said dryly.

“No shit. So, anyway, here we are. Would’ve been nice to get more advance notice. We’ll have fun though. We always do.” SkekUng shrugged, the motion enlarged by the numerous and complex protrusions of his carapace. He passed one of the phegnese stalls without looking in.

“Hey. Not like you to skip one, even though you know damn well they’ve all been tended to.”

“Eh, that’s Satirist’s phegnese. A weakling.”

“Satirist?”

“No, his phegnese. A useless runt. I was fixing to rip its head off, like one does when they’re not worth their feed and board, and SkekLi pitched a big fuss. I told him he could keep it as long as he made use of it and tended to it himself.”

“The keepers don’t look after it?”

“Of course they look after it. It’s their job? _I_ just don’t check on it. That was the bargain: SkekLi is ultimately responsible for the thing, since he was so set on it living. So, I don’t check on it,” SkekUng explained impatiently. SkekNa didn’t always understand his particular sensibilities, but frankly he should after all these trine. 

SkekNa hissed in confusion or annoyance. “If you have your help tend to it, but you check all your help’s work, then you should be checking this one too.” He glared into the pen at the small phegnese. 

SkekUng, several pens ahead of him, grumped back over his shoulder, “And how’s it look?”

“Fine, I guess. I don’t know shit about phegnese.”

“It’s fine because the keepers take care of it.”

“If the keepers take care of everything, why do you check them all so often?”

“Just in case, shit-for-brains.”

SkekNa stalked quickly up to fall into step beside SkekUng. “If you check all the rest of them ‘just in case,’ then you should also check that one ‘just in case’! Especially since Satirist is–staying out of public places at the moment, so he can’t look to it.” 

“Aww, you _sure_ you don’t harbor pity in your heart for poor SkekLi?”

“ _No_ , fuckwad, what heart? It’s just stupid that you won’t double check that one if you double check all the others.” SkekNa was bristling in pedantic ire. The feathers on his head and neck had thinned out a bit over the trine, as everyone’s had, but he still looked particularly attractive when he was angry. 

SkekUng goaded the other Skeksis, in spite of himself, just to see him continue to bristle (and also because SkekNa was challenging SkekUng for no good reason whatsoever, and that was unacceptable): “I already explained to you. That phegnese is specifically not my business, it’s only alive because SkekLi wouldn’t let me be until I agreed not to dispatch it. Can that be so bloody hard to wrap your brain around? Pretty obvious you have some soft spot for him.” 

“Fuck you.” 

“Well, good, because we’re bringing him with us, pending Emperor’s approval.” 

SkekNa’s mouth hung open a bit. “Pardon me? SkekLi almost got me killed because of his bad translation. In what world is it a good fucking idea to bring him again?” 

“Who else around here knows any of the Gruenak tongue, beyond a few words? SkekOk? That one would shit himself if anyone even drew a blade on him, he’s not suitable for this.” 

“We don’t need to talk to Gruenak, we just need to kill them.” SkekNa clacked the blades of his hook in vexation.

“Lots of Gruenak to locate before we kill them, SkekNa. How do we find out where they are? You and me, we’re straightforward folk–no frills, no nonsense. We don’t know a lot of fancy languages. Guess who fucking does?”

They’d stopped in front of the last of the phegnese pens. SkekUng leaned back on the wooden slats, feigning indifference as SkekNa railed quietly at him, “Yeah? Guess who didn’t know enough Gruenak language to avoid being actually fucking kidnapped by them?”

“From how you described it, it was an honest mistake. I think the Gruenak you talked to misled SkekLi deliberately, you know, taking advantage of possible interpretations of words.”

“Sure, let’s grant that, who’s to say they won’t mislead again?”

“Less likely to if you and I are at liberty to torture honesty out of them.” 

SkekNa shook his head as if to forcibly expel some of his stupidity, then resumed his complaints along a different line. “ _You_ asked Emperor to let you take SkekLi along? Never mind the translation thing, that was risky, SkekLi is still in disfavor.” 

“Risky for you, yes. Not so much for me,” SkekUng shrugged, alluding both to his higher rank and to his lack of direct involvement in the embarrassing hostage situation. 

SkekNa’s eyes narrowed. “So you just went ahead, without so much as running it by–” 

“I don’t need your permission. This was tasked to me. I’ll handle it how I see fit.” 

“Right. You’re so fucking important. Poor of me to forget,” hissed SkekNa. “Stupid of me to think we’d get some time on the road alone, just us two and all the blood we leave behind us. Who gives a shit about that, eh? I only just got back, but you would need to make this whole thing crowded. You that sore that I fucked someone who wasn’t you for a while?” He stalked off in the general direction of his quarters.

“I am not–” SkekUng started to bellow, ire coursing along his veins. Thinking better of letting the whole Castle in on their drama, he checked himself and hurried to catch up, then snarled quietly in the other’s earhole, “I am not sore. This is a tactical decision.”

For what it was worth, it was that. That didn’t mean it might not also be other things, but SkekUng wasn’t one to sit around dissecting the half-unseen corners of his mind.   


SkekNa paced in silence for a while before saying in undertones, “Tactical. Sure. You drooling, mangy idiot.” 

“I could–” SkekUng immediately choked down the words _I could have you flayed_. It was easy to intimidate and frighten people, but he had never seriously threatened SkekNa and it would be in bad faith to start now. Their association wasn’t grounded in threats; the fact that SkekNa gave of himself, of his own free will, was important. And when it came down to it, SkekNa was right: SkekUng _was_ drooly and mangy, and he was fortunate that someone more attractive would, under no duress and animated by no ulterior motives, give him the time of day.

The silence walked with them uncomfortably for a minute before SkekNa turned the corner into the passage where his quarters were. “Mmh, yes, you could, couldn’t you,” the Slave-keeper murmured acridly as he stopped in front of his door and unlocked it. He turned around for a moment in the doorway, but only make sure SkekUng didn’t follow him in.  


  
~~~  


SkekLi took his time emerging from his quarters, and when he did, more than a week after he’d last closed his door behind SkekZok, it was with a plan. He’d decided prior to his punishment that it would be best to ingratiate himself with SkekUng, a fairly high-ranking person who was easy enough to please if one had little enough of one’s own pride. That was still a decent plan, more so now that SkekLi had disgraced himself so deeply. He’d be an all-too-easy target if he didn’t associate himself with someone important. 

Of course, SkekUng might not be amenable to that effort. SkekLi might be in such disfavor that the Commander would find associating with the Satirist to be–not in his own best interests. On the other hand, SkekUng’s rank was enough to make him an arbiter of sorts; if someone at his level signaled that it was safe to bring a disgraced Skeksis back into the fold, others were more likely to follow suit. All SkekLi could do was make the attempt.

He lurked and watched for several days, not approaching anyone. He prowled the halls like the Chamberlain, but silent, darker of garb and plumage. The initial grim sense of plotting gradually gave way to eagerness, as he’d surmised it would. As introspective as he often became, as wounded as he now was, the ability to be alone never lasted him long. It would be good, assuming it worked at all, to feel something other than the ache of the spaces in his mouth and the space under his ribs where his memory of SkekGra lived.

Not that the vaguely domestic habits of SkekNa and SkekUng were his business, but in his lurking SkekLi learned incidentally that they seemed to retire together to one or the other’s quarters on most nights; apparently not all the time, since on the fourth evening of this quiet creeping the he saw them part ways in front of SkekNa’s door. They looked mutually exasperated. That must happen regularly, considering both personalities. Keeping back and to the shadows, SkekLi followed SkekUng to his quarters. He let an “I definitely was not stalking you” interval pass, making a few rounds of some circuitous corridors and flights of stairs, then approached SkekUng’s door and knocked at once before he could lose his nerve.

The door took its time opening, and then the face that appeared in the vertical shaft of light was both annoyed and wary, as though its owner were expecting either an irritant or a threat. SkekUng blinked, and his eyes narrowed just a bit in a slightly predatory expression.  
  
“Forgive me if I interrupt you, my lord, I’ll–”

“No, it’s fine.”

SkekLi stepped over the threshold when the other gestured brusquely. He stood awkwardly a few paces into the room, aware of the eyes trained on his back as SkekUng shut the door slowly and almost silently. For someone who spent a lot of time stomping about the halls, pounding on the table, and yelling in ire, SkekUng could be very precise when he cared to. The Satirist tried to keep still, wanting to squirm in unease and mild arousal. 

“I was packing, it can wait. We’ll be leaving day after tomorrow. You might be coming with us. We can discuss that later.” 

On the couch and table were laid out various items–baggage half packed, weapons, rolled and bound parchments, small bottles of intoxicating or healing agents, greaves and arm guards. SkekLi tried not to visibly react to the information. It would be good to remove from the Castle for a time, but he’d been reluctant to do so under his own power lest he appear too eager to escape the social ramifications of his punishment. Presumably this bore on the Gruenak matter with which SkekSo had tasked SkekUng. Given the Satirist’s translation gaffe, he’d not thought he would be recruited to such an effort: but, then again, he knew that tongue better than anyone here, fateful mistake or no. Anyway, SkekUng had just said it was a topic for later and his purpose here was to give SkekUng whatever he wanted. 

SkekUng paced up behind him, barely brushing him, and around to stand in front of him. He eyed the five teeth SkekLi had strung around his neck in the same order as they’d once sat in his mouth, gave an approving hiss, and laid one large, long, surprisingly thin hand over the teeth and the flesh beneath them. “This…”

“I need to thank you, for advocating for–”

“Yes, and you asked for them. Bold. And doing this with them.” SkekUng’s palm remained pressed over the teeth, while his fingers curled lightly over the base of SkekLi’s neck. “I like it.” 

SkekLi leaned into the hand, tilting his chin up, the abrupt rush of excitement a welcome respite. SkekUng’s hand strayed up his throat, tightening a bit, and under his chin, the tips of his claws poking meaningfully at his closed mouth. It didn’t matter, then, that SkekUng had been the one to pry his beak open for his punishment, had looked at him with a sadistic hunger afterward and wore a similar expression now. It was saner for Skeksis to not dwell on such–commonplace things. Nor did the sense of controlled peril, of need, of feeling like a living and breathing creature for the first time since returning to the Castle, leave SkekLi any room to dwell on it. He curled his tongue around one of the claws poking into his mouth, causing the other to hiss and pull his jaw lower down farther. 

SkekUng bent close, tongue angling, predictably, for one of the blank spaces in SkekLi’s mouth. The gums, while doing a good deal better, were still mending, but worse was the reminder of what had gone missing from those small spaces and how. Happily, that was quickly brought to a halt by the ointment SkekLi was still dabbing in the healing depressions on SkekTek’s advisement, which didn’t taste great. SkekUng withdrew with a mildly repulsed look, rasped his tongue up SkekLi’s throat to get the ointment off, and settled for licking the gumline just behind the teeth, passing over the larger gap on the left, circling briefly around the one upper tooth remaining in front, over the gap on the right. 

SkekLi tentatively touched SkekUng’s tongue with his own, prompting a precipitant torrent of mutual prodding and licking and tangling that left him almost breathless. “Also, I–need to apologize…”

“What for?” SkekUng probably knew what for, but wanted to hear it anyway.

“For–attempting to refuse you. It was your prerogative.” This was easy for SkekLi to say, now that his mood was completely different to what it had been when SkekUng had accosted him in the garden. The present could be quite convenient that way, visiting such need upon him that he could barely empathize with his prior self. “I was distracted. Forgive. Please.”

SkekUng’s eyes were bright and frightening, in a way that was not bad at that moment. “Ask very humbly, and I’ll consider it.”

SkekLi had repeated the plea numerous times, although it was no longer forgiveness he asked for, before SkekUng was done with him.

SkekUng held onto him for a quite a while after. It was not a tender gesture. The fellow was very touchy-feely, in a way that was the opposite of tender; one could sense an idle threat, an understanding in those hands that they could as well break as caress, an enjoyment of their own power. The motive didn’t matter though, it was pleasant all the same. 

SkekGra had never really touched him in any _detailed_ way, SkekLi reflected, not before nor during and certainly not after. Not that he was supposed to be thinking about SkekGra. Mustn’t wander too far in that direction and wind up weeping in such arms as SkekUng’s, _but_ it was good to take SkekGra down a peg in the privacy of his thoughts. The former Conqueror had been many things, but, to be frank, he’d not been great in bed; really, only SkekLi’s own besotted mind could have left him with any contrary impression.

“What are you smirking for?”

SkekLi considered the merits of giving SkekUng the abridged version, of telling him that he was better than the Conqueror (Heretic, whatever), but that would probably sound contrived. It would’ve been a paltry half-truth anyway, since the–affection SkekGra had evoked could never be replicated and was what had made it good. 

“I–I’m happy to be out of my rooms and…interacting with Skeksis again.”

“Mm-hm. You _interacted_ with anyone else recently?”

“No.”

“Since you got back to the Castle?”

“Nope.” 

As SkekLi had hoped, the other Skeksis seemed smug. “And you came to me first? Not SkekNa, after all that time you spent getting to know each other? Why?”

There were several answers, most having to do with circumstance and strategizing. The only useful answer arrived off-the-cuff. “You’re uncommonly good with your hands.” SkekUng growled under his breath and reached back down between SkekLi’s legs, as though to gauge the sincerity of the statement. SkekLi mewled and pushed against him. “Yes. As I was saying.”

  


~~~

  
SkekUng prodded the Satirist toward the door, saying again more insistently, “Out.” He all but pushed SkekLi backward into the corridor with one hand, not before groping him aggressively a final time.

Turning back to his packing, SkekUng grumbled wordlessly to himself. That had been a surprising but welcome diversion. SkekLi was persuasive, but SkekUng wasn’t fool enough to think there was no ulterior motive there. It didn’t much matter. He’d already stood up for SkekLi and he’d do so again as long as it didn’t imperil himself or SkekNa, and as long as the Satirist kept up this mutually beneficial ploy. Ploy it might be, but it had also been very sincere in its way. 

Considering the good fortune of having someone in his grasp so eager to be taken apart, SkekUng noted that he’d been very fortunate in general lately. He’d only just gotten SkekNa back, after having no clue what had become of him for unum, and they’d both narrowly evaded the Emperor’s wrath more than once in that short time. Really, he’d always been fortunate in SkekNa, as annoying as the Slave-keeper was. The thought was sappy, but as long as SkekUng did his job and kept his hide, who knew or cared what might sometimes go on in the privacy of his mind? He finished his packing with renewed energy. He would make sure SkekNa forgot about their tiff, tomorrow. 

~~~

  
SkekLi shambled back to his rooms, hard pressed to refrain from snickering to himself on the way. There was nothing particularly praiseworthy about getting reamed by SkekUng, but it felt like an accomplishment after how powerless he’d been rendered. Given the situation, it had been some concrete progress toward the goal of getting his life back under his feet. It had also just been fun, but who was keeping track? 

Also, it was useful to know that he might be free of this Castle with two days. If SkekLi hadn’t taken it upon himself to visit SkekUng, he might not have been given that information until he had mere hours to prepare. Tomorrow, he’d pack. It wasn’t as though he had much else to do. 

He found a small burlap-wrapped package propped against his door. Good of someone, probably SkekTek or SkekOk, to think of feeding him at this late hour, SkekLi thought with mingled sentimentality and exasperation as he brought it in. He’d been sitting in there practically starving for, what, thirteen days? Granted, he could probably have begged SkekAyuk for some food or raided the kitchens off-hours, but he’d not had the stomach for either attempt. He’d first eaten what few snacks he had on hand, soaking them for hours to create an unappetizing mush that didn’t need chewing, then skulked out into the gardens to look for berries and bugs. The best had been an egg, in a nest on a branch barely higher than his head, somehow overlooked by SkekNa or other opportunistic creatures. SkekLi had woken the fat dun bird huddled on it in the dead of night with a sweep of his arm, cracked the egg with his last front tooth and gulped its warm contents while the bird churred at him in impotent and desolate rage. He’d wanted to enjoy the bird’s distress, and some part of him had, yet he’d felt a certain horror after finishing the egg. Not that he knew what it was like to feel as though some part of the world were unremittingly good, would never change, only to have it all upended.

That was no matter, now. SkekLi fell backwards onto his bed, staring up out of the tall window. The moons were all full, ridiculously bright. One could almost read by this illumination alone. He didn’t bother drawing the curtains, and sighed up at the sky in a sort of giddy melancholy. One who has walked through darkness can sleep through light. 


	11. My Life Will Never End, and Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All's well that ends well. Or, all ends that ends. Or, end, begin, all the same-- You know what, never mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only substantive warning would probably be the first scene, because SkekNa will eventually find creative ways to waterboard underlings.

The Podling squirmed and tried irreverently to escape, even as it pleaded for mercy where it was chained and manacled to a tabletop on its back. SkekNa didn’t know as much of their language as he probably should, but he knew enough to pick out that it was trying to evade responsibility, saying something like: “How do you know? I look like any other Podling. Could be anyone.”

SkekNa laughed violently, aware that Skeksis breath was rather foul to its kind. “Good try, but I saw your face when you snuck that mead off the tray. Just for a second. Thought you could disappear into the crowd? The other lords might think you all look alike, but I know every last one of your faces.”

Not that he could be bothered to remember their ridiculous names though, and he didn’t need to. Each face had a number associated with it, all of which he knew. He pinched the mead-thief’s nose with his hook, and the little thing opened its mouth automatically, only to find an open bottle of the best mead in the Castle shoved down its gullet until it couldn’t breathe around it. _Glug, glug_. SkekNa crowed with amusement as the Podling gasped and choked on the expensive stuff, its panicked eyes staring into his pleadingly. “Worth it, you think, for one measly cup? Could’ve just drunk your own rations, but you’re too high and mighty for that, eh? Have all the good stuff you want. Say ‘Thank you, Lord SkekNa.’ No? What’s the matter, kiznet got your tongue? Hah!”

A throat-clearing noise interrupted him, someone standing in the entryway to the large indoor square all the Podling quarters opened onto. SkekNa raised his head with a snarl. The others rarely interfered in his business around here, aside from occasionally stopping by to see if he was doing something amusing to the help. But, if it was the Emperor, he might get in trouble. SkekSo had some precious opinions on what “went too far.”

It was only SkekUng. SkekNa sighed under his breath. Many of the Podlings would be watching the scene in the square from behind the tattered curtains of their barracks. If SkekUng challenged him on his own turf, in a way that was perceptible to onlookers, they were going to need to have more words. Or maybe no words, and nothing else, for quite a while.

An odd bubbling made SkekNa glance back down. The liquid had stopped exiting the bottle and was now doing its best to come back. The Podling looked like it had lost consciousness, but it was spasming as its stomach tried to disgorge its overfull contents. Shit, he’d probably gotten carried away again. If SkekUng could see what was happening even from where he stood, and had tried to warn him, he’d definitely gotten carried away.

SkekNa removed the bottle and the unconscious Podling vomited. “Spend the night in shackles here considering whether it was worth it,” he told it, as though it could hear him. “If you’re still breathing when I come back tomorrow, ten lashes.” He left the Podling on the table, tossing the bottle over his shoulder. It shattered behind him.

He strode past SkekUng, casting him a sidelong glare and gesturing with a stiff motion of his head back out into the main network of corridors. While he was shutting the door and all its locks and deadbolts behind him, the lecture began: “Right, so, to prove what a bad idea it is to steal a cup of the finest mead in Skarith, you waste a whole bottle of the stuff.”

“Shut it, SkekUng, it’s the principle of the thing.”

“‘Principle.’ Just admit you wanted to waterboard a Podling with the finest mead in Skarith. How careful an inventory does SkekAyuk keep anyway?”

“You didn’t much like when I questioned the way you did things, now did you?” SkekNa slouched off down the hall. SkekUng followed. “Don’t you have packing to do?”

“Did it already.”

“Well, some of us need to pack.”

“I’ll help you.”

“The Shard you will. Go away.”

SkekUng did not go away. SkekNa stopped at his door and glared again: “Apparently I need to remind you that I’m mad at you.”

“We can fix that. We don’t stay mad for long.”

“I have no interest in fixing that right now. Leave!”

SkekUng lowered his head a bit and glanced around before speaking quietly. “Please?”

“Eh?” When was the last time SkekUng had let that word leave his mouth? SkekNa sighed and opened the door and waved him in, trying to be angry but actually slightly more intrigued. “Pathetic. What are you on about?”

“You weren’t wrong, last night. You haven’t been back long. I haven’t had you to myself enough. I was just…thinking about it.”

SkekUng’s reddish-brown eyes looked very sincere. SkekNa growled in frustration, mostly at himself for letting himself be distracted by this pitiful display. Seeing as he had the upper hand at the moment, it only made sense to push SkekUng back against the wall and start gnawing at his throat. “Better not forget you said you’d help me pack, I’ll need it since you’re wasting all my time.”

  
~~~

  
“You understand that your linguistic aptitude, aside from being the sole reason you are even able to speak at all, is the sole reason I granted SkekUng’s request.”   
  
“I understand plainly. I thank my Emperor for vouchsafing me to play a part in this project.”

SkekSo peered down at the Skeksis he’d summoned again, under somewhat less dramatic circumstances, to the receiving room abutting the Emperor’s chambers. The Satirist was crouched with his usual paradoxical bearing, for all intents and purposes humble, but holding in his stillness some faint arrogance that was nearly impossible to pin down or condemn. Moreover, the fellow’s very speech was arrogant; he’d refused to be inconvenienced by the removal of most of his front teeth, already found some way to compensate, and spoke with only the barest hint of impediment. Granted, the punishment had been designed to allow him to retain his speech, but not so very easily. “Ah, you’ve–adjusted quickly.”

“My lord, you told me, yourself, that my only use to my people is in my voice. What should I do, other than keep it?”

The Emperor managed not to visibly or audibly snarl at the soft and level remark. “Keep it well, then.”

  
~~~

  
His life had been happy, SkekLi had lately realized. That had been hard to know until unhappiness had thrown it into relief. It’d never been perfect, but he’d found joy in many things. Certainly there’d been a note of melancholy in him he’d never been able to understand or explain, but nothing like this long, dark motif of lamentation or protest. He refused to believe he would remain this way. He couldn’t see himself beset by this shadow forever; or, perhaps it was that part of him could see that happening all too easily, and it disgusted him like trying to expel water from drowning lungs. 

Surely the worst of it had passed. The physical hurt was subsiding, and so too must the other hurts, must they not? He was being given a chance to make up for his missteps, he’d found allies of sorts, and nothing could be done but to go on. Granted, SkekNa and SkekUng weren’t the most stimulating conversationalists, but they were definitely stimulating in other ways, ways that cheered SkekLi up. That he was capable of being cheered up at all showed that the shadow was capable of dispersing, yes? No one could be what SkekGra had been, but wasn’t that just as well, since that had caused only pain in the end? If one wanted to argue about history and translation, one could always go to SkekOk; not the same, because the Satirist had no interest in SkekOk, and all the better for that. Better to just talk to the intelligent ones, and leave more sordid acts to the tender mercies of the stupid ones. There was no risk of growing untoward feelings about such people as he occupied the carriage with now.

“Hey,” SkekNa repeated, elbowing SkekLi. “What’re you thinking so hard about?”

The Satirist wrenched his eyes away from the land flowing by. Of course he’d never want to admit that he was spending such deep thought upon these two, and, at the same time, that his thoughts were far away from them both and from the task they’d been set. “…Looks like rain?” he volunteered, which it rather did.

“Lot of thought to be giving to the weather.” SkekNa attempted to imitate SkekLi’s expression, knitting his brows together, but the mockery only went so far since the Slave-keeper wasn’t the best impressionist. 

SkekUng, across from them (he had the other seat to himself, since he was the ranking Skeksis here and it was his carriage, and also he took up a good deal more room than either of them), smirked. “Gotta give some thought to it. Heavy rain’ll slow this bloody contraption down on the backroads. That would be a shame.”

SkekNa seemed to tense at first when SkekUng appeared to agree with SkekLi, then resumed his own smirking. “A great shame. Might almost give us time to prepare better, if we get stuck in the mud.”

“Lots to do during downtime,” agreed SkekUng. “Review the maps, the prior reports–” [Those would be documents detailing the topography and peoples of the coastal region west of Skarith, beyond the wall of the mountains, compiled by SkekGra and SkekSa although the former name would have suffered obliteration by ‘accidental’ ink or other spills.] “–and make sure our translator here is up on his Gruenak.”

SkekLi tried not to wince. It would be a while before he would live that translation foible down. It would also be better to attend to his companions’ words, which were both vindictive and pragmatic, as much as his mind was inclined to wander into the past where journeys on long-dead phegnese with banished persons still lived. 

SkekNa grinned widely, but almost innocently, not quite his usual predatory expression. SkekLi was starting to notice that both SkekNa and SkekUng acted a bit differently, when at their ease with no one of greater rank around to judge: sometimes, a bit like childlings, albeit rather menacing childlings. “You like stories, right, Satirist? Tell us a story, in Gruenak, but translate as you tell.”

“Tell,” SkekUng echoed, in a way that couldn’t be declined, watching with an intent look that could either be jealousy or bemusement as SkekNa flopped over on the carriage seat with his head on SkekLi’s lap like a princeling waiting for a tale.

  
~~~  
  


 _There was once a great warrior who spilled much blood, that the earth drank eagerly. The warrior was taken with a sailor, who named the all seas they saw. Whenever the sailor came to shore the warrior would bring them all the things from war, all the prizes. Gems, scrolls, wine. Bones. But, the sailor was never happy with these gifts._

_“What do you want? What can I give you, for my devotion?” the warrior said._

_And the sailor said, “All of these things from you are nothing, these things from how you make your life on Thra–Nothing.”_

_“Tell me what I can give!” the warrior said, and wept._

_“Should I tell you? You cannot give it,” said the sailor, and wept.  
  
“Only tell me!” _

_“You have asked it. Do you see the moons three? Their faces, their faces that they hide and disclose in their dance, their faces sing the tides. Learn the tongue of the moons three, and sing them by their names. Tell them to rest on the sea-edge, where the sea and the sky are one. Tell them to speak to me and call me by name. Learn the tongue of the moons three, and tell them to call my ship by name, and tell them–tell them, to tell my ship to make its course toward you. Only that.”_

_“Only that,” the warrior said to the sailor, and wept. “Only that!”_

_“Only that!” the sailor answered the warrior, and wept. “Only that.”_

_And the warrior fed the world with blood, as before, and the sailor named the seas, as before. They did not see each other again, though there was all the long life of Thra. The world bled, and the seas sang, but it did not matter. The moons three went on with their dance, hiding their faces, disclosing their faces._

  
~~~

  
SkekNa growled under his breath. “What is that? That’s the best you can do, that–”

“Maudlin shit?” SkekLi supplied, flippantly, but his stringy frame tensed a bit.

“Yeah, that,” SkekNa concurred, although he had no clue what ‘maudlin’ meant. 

“You wanted a story I could tell and translate as I told it. That was the first that came to mind.” The Satirist petted his neck, almost condescendingly. SkekNa snarled more forcibly, but still in his throat, and didn’t bother moving.

“That’s a Gruenak story?” SkekUng said.

“Well, no. It was a story with simple refrains that I thought I could tell in Gruenak, and then translate, as my lords requested.”

“Whose story is it?”

“It is…they–it doesn’t matter, we destroyed those people long ago.” SkekLi had resumed his vacant yet intent gaze out the carriage window, still petting SkekNa almost absently. 

  
~~~

  
They stopped on the backroads, several miles west of the well-kept main road from the Castle where it curved east into one of the several thoroughfares that would eventually lead to Stone-in-the-Wood. Carriage-ready roads hadn’t yet been extended all the way to the mountains and thence the coast from this vantage, it being a long way southwest of Cera-Na. Tomorrow, probably late in the morning, they’d need to abandon the carriage and send it back with a coded message detailing their progress, while they proceeded across the narrow lowland between the Bah-Lem plateau and the coast range. They would be walking for almost a week across a transitional climatic area, where no precipitation occurred during summer but where water shed via steams from the plateau to the northeast might rapidly overrun its banks and flood the hard-packed, bone-dry soil; that was likely, given the rain that had broken violently not long before they stopped for the evening to rest the armalig.

These armalig had been captive-bred for many generations and would follow the road back to the Castle, once the small Skeksis party did part ways with the carriage and continue on foot. Depending on how the initial confrontation with Gruenak panned out, they might need to send more coded missives back to the Castle with the homing bats kept in a small wicker-braced compartment on the side of one of SkekUng’s packs, asking for landstrider-mounted Gelfling troops to follow in their wake. SkekUng was confident they could assess the situation and deal with it as need dictated, so long as the bats were kept in their small dark nook and not allowed to be alone with SkekNa. For all that SkekNa was– Well, it didn’t matter, for all that SkekNa was the closest possible of allies, he also harried and abused creatures at any opportunity. Even the understanding that the bats were messengers wouldn’t necessarily stay his hand (hook, whatever). Not that SkekUng couldn’t relate, but he at least had to and knew how to control himself.

It was maybe just as well that SkekLi was around to deflect a bit of SkekNa’s aggression, given the latter was still somewhat sore about being called out and chastised in front of all the Skeksis. The punishment had been relatively minor, but it came with its own problems since SkekNa’d had no room to expand himself as he had during the excruciating removal of his forearm: he’d had only the humiliation, without the edifying benefit of a truly awful ordeal.

And anyway, SkekNa’s latest suffering, three days of having his ears plugged up, had been due to the Slave-keeper’s failure to report SkekLi’s seditious words. SkekUng had to wonder whether SkekNa, besides being resentful, might be jealous of the stir SkekLi had created and how the Satirist had handled it. Not that he’d made bold to ask about that particular thing. SkekUng was blunt, to the point where they’d already discussed–easily enough after he’d broached the topic yesterday–what SkekLi’s sidelong intrusion into their sex lives meant, but not blunt enough to ask about something as personal as SkekNa’s feelings in a matter that didn’t directly involve himself. 

The carriage stopped and SkekUng thrashed aside the curtains, opened the window, and leaned his lead out into the lashing rain. “They can’t go any further tonight. Path goes steep right ahead there. Even without the rain, they won’t be able to go much longer tomorrow. Let’s stop for the night.”

SkekLi made to exit the carriage as the other two made to settle in for the evening. 

“Where do you think you’re going? It’s storming out there.” SkekUng didn’t really care. He’d slogged through rain and thunder himself, just for the rush of it, and he suspected SkekLi–otherwise diametrically opposed to him–was very much like him in a couple respects. But, as the leader of the party, he had to make a pretense of caring what the Satirist got up to.

“It is. I’m going into the storm,” SkekLi stated the obvious with bright eyes.

“Right, fine. Just don’t drip all over everything when you get back.”

~~~  


SkekLi will return to find the other two playing a drinking game, or rather a board game with pieces moved about strategically, but they’ll be playing it as a drinking game where the capture of a piece by one player results in both a shot taken and the removal of an article of clothing by the other player. There are hard but serviceable beds that pull out from under the seats of the carriage, that SkekUng and SkekNa are already sprawled across, and, reasonably enough, they demand that SkekLi ditch the sopping clothes so he doesn’t mess this bed up. Unfairly, they will each demand that he help them with the game, hissing secretively in his ear as he crouches bare between them and trying to remain impassive, demanding answers he won’t quite be able to give, his mind not being on such things as a strategy game at all, until the gameboard and its pieces as scattered about the carriage. He’ll forget the facets of his anguish, in the terrifying elation of being trapped between two such people, both of their jaws closing around his neck from either side, aware that they could bite his head off between them if they really wished and aware also that they’re paying more attention to each other than to him–that he is a conduit of sorts, but a willing one. Something like that will play out more than once, for many trine, with both of them, with one or the other of them, and he’ll be grateful to them both even though they are cretinous. SkekLi may not be as cruel in his blood as these two are, but nor does he condemn them, and he’ll come to regard them both with some sort of affection (he already has), and more with loyalty–Until, maybe, there arrives some hour when he does not.

For now, SkekLi wanders out into the rain, slipping in the mud that is thickening amidst the chaparral scrub as the water shushes down the slope and into the valley they’ve yet to traverse, sometimes managing to leap between boulders and avoid the mud. When he leaps, he does so on his fours like an animal running, like they all used to do much of the time before they learned clothes and manners, like they two did when he and SkekGra chased each other across the upland plains. He stops for quite a while on a wide, flat rock, and tilts his head up into the rain that pours down his gullet and leaves him nearly breathless. The thunder speaks aloud, speaks loud, names he does not know, that nearly rattle his sternum, and he cries. The lightning flares as though to illumine all of Thra, and he laughs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking around for this. I was trying to update weekly but it went dark for a while before the last chapter, partly because it's hard to write with all the shit going on lately and partly because I've resumed work on a long-slumbering longfic (shhhh). I did want to finish this before the American day of reckoning though.
> 
> This has been, um, an experience. It was probably supposed to be about 1/4 the length it ended up as. I love all three of the primary characters in this story so much, although I only relate to one of them distinctly (I won't bother taking bets on which), but in any case it's been a blast to throw them all on the same stage together.


End file.
